Chapter 27
Slim
“Hello?” Marissa answers the phone apprehensively, like she’s worried I’m calling from the supermarket again.
Two weeks ago, I unthinkingly called her to ask which garbage bags we usually get, and it was beyond awkward for both of us. I returned home without any.
“Hey Riss, quick question,” I say nonchalantly. “Have you heard from Rachel lately?”
The long pause makes me narrow my eyes. Does she know something?
“Not really,” she says evenly. “Why? Did something happen? Is she okay?”
The genuine panic in her voice helps me relax.
“No, not really. I can’t get a hold of Truck, so I… I'm being sued by a client, and I need his help."
I don't really know why I told her that, and, judging from her tone, neither does she.
"I'm sorry to hear that." She replies warily.
"Let me know if you hear from her, okay?”
"Sure."
“Fucking hell,” I exclaim after I hang up.
I feel like I’ve done little else but talk on the phone for the last three days: dealing with the lawyers, managing Sly’s rage, trying to calm Angie, and helping the club do as much financial damage control as possible with all the key players locked up.
Not to mention, handling my own legal troubles. The SpongeBob tattoo guy claims that I messed up and gave him an infection. He ended up having his leg amputated up to the knee.
My lawyer says I’ll most likely have to settle, since they have Rebel and me on video fucking our way through every square inch of the shop without ever really cleaning up after ourselves.
The last thing I need is to become involved in the club's federal drug case.
After the raid, those of us who weren’t arrested were allowed to leave.
The clubhouse, however, had to remain sealed for the feds to execute their search warrants, as did all the club businesses.
Right now, Inkspiration is hemorrhaging money.
This, together with the settlement, will fucking bankrupt me.
The feds seized all of the drug money from the Wolves' safe and a shitload of drugs from the clubhouse. Our strip club, Skinfinity, is probably going to remain closed indefinitely, since that’s where the club used to launder most of it.
We had to resort to selling or mortgaging our remaining assets to cover attorney fees, retainers, and bail for our men, but it's nowhere near enough.
“Anything?” Rebel asks, and I shake my head.
My wife makes a face. “She’s fucking useless. What did the lawyer say?”
“He thinks he can get Sly out on bail. I’m taking Angie to see him later today.”
Angie’s been hysterical and unable to function since Sly’s arrest. Thank God she has my wife supporting her and helping out with Ryder, despite her own struggles with processing her brother’s arrest weighing on her.
Bell has lost a lot of weight and has been acting increasingly erratic since the raid.
I hug her. “We’ll get him out, okay? Don’t worry.”
*
After a sobbing Angie comes out of the visitor’s room, it’s my turn to go see Prez.
“How are you, man?” I ask into the receiver.
The orange suit makes him look so much smaller. Or maybe it’s the glass.
“I’m good, our friends have a lot of friends in here,” he tells me quietly. “Thanks for holding things down out there.”
I nod, then run my hand over my mouth and unshaven chin. “That motherfucker really screwed us.”
“You can say that again,” Sly mutters. "Him and that bitch wife of his."
I don’t think any of us will ever be the same again after our VP’s betrayal. The day the club lawyer told us that Truck had turned state’s witness and was most likely in witness protection with his entire family was worse than the day Gunner died.
“I might get lucky with bail, but I don’t think the trial will end well. You need to be ready to step up in the club.”
“What about Claw?” I ask, not eager to have this mess dropped in my lap.
“I was just getting to that. We need your house as collateral for his bail.”
*
I should really stop torturing myself mentally over this.
Why didn’t Truck just leave the club if he was unhappy instead of doing this to us?
I will probably never understand how he could betray us, his brothers, like this.
The bigger issue going forward is, how come none of us noticed what was going on under our very own noses?
I need to focus on something, something positive.
My son’s birthday party.
I need this. The Wolves need this. Sly will be out on bail in a few days, and we’ll all get together, minus that fucking traitor, and we’ll drink and celebrate, and we’ll forget our troubles, for a moment at least.
Rebel once showed me a bunch of brochures with pictures of parties that the party-planning people organized. I remember that much.
I rummage through various piles of papers at home to find them, but to no avail.
Where are those fucking things?!
In a last-ditch effort, I open Rebel’s closet and pull out the box of papers she keeps there. I shuffle through them, locating only identifying keywords on each piece of paper - payment, certificate, receipt, total, bill, bank, until I see the words injection procedure, intramuscular.
I frown and take a closer look.
Medroxyprogesterone acetate.
(Depo-Provera).
Hormonal.
Contraceptive.
Injection.
Consent form.
My hands start shaking. The date on this fucking thing is March this year.
Hours later, when my wife gets home from wherever her lying ass has been all day, she finds me sitting at the kitchen table, lost in thought.
“Shit!” she exclaims when she turns on the light. “You scared me.”
“What is Depo-Provera?” I ask her, my voice hoarse from disuse.
“What?” She tries pretending that she’s confused, but her eyes nervously dart around the room like they’re going to land on an answer.
“What. Is. Depo. Provera.” I grit through my teeth, the betrayal and agony I’ve been processing for the last few hours threatening to undo me.
“It’s a birth control shot,” she finally admits as she absentmindedly scratches her forearm.
“And why are you on birth control if we’re trying for a child?”
Rebel takes a deep breath and takes a step towards me. “Carlos made me get the shots when we were together, and I -”
I throw the papers at her mid-lie. “This says you got it two months ago! Stop lying to me!”
“Dylan, I -” She starts to choke up, but I look away.
I can’t trust her tears. I can’t trust anything right now.
I'm overcome by such disgust and anger towards her that I can't even look at her lying face.
“I’m scared of getting pregnant again. The last time…”
“What happened last time, huh? You said you didn’t want to have a child, so we got rid of it, fine!
I supported your choice! We weren’t ready, we were young, all that bullshit.
But what about now? What’s the problem now?
We’re in our 30s, married, we have a house, our own shop, I don’t fucking understand you! ”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” she says between sobs.
It’s a gut-wrenching sight. She’s doubled over, clutching the part of her where our baby once was, and in a way, I get it.
I felt incredibly guilty when Marissa first became pregnant. Like I was betraying my first baby somehow by being excited and happy.
“Do you even want to have a baby with me?” I ask her quietly.
“I do, I swear!” She comes up to me and grabs my face with both of her hands. “I promise. The shots only last three months, so we can try for real in a month. I won’t get any more, I promise, okay?”
Her eyes search mine frantically, but I stare at the middle of her forehead as I think about how to proceed.
“You have to be more involved with Junior,” I say reluctantly, and she nods twice. “No more disappearing when he’s here. And you have to help plan his birthday party.”
“I will. I promise.”
I don't respond at first, uncertain of where to go from here. I've put all my eggs in the same basket, the MC one. My business, my friends, my wife, they all sprung from the same place, and now the fabric my universe is woven from seems to be slowly disintegrating.
I suddenly remember Marissa and Hawk walking up to me that first weekend I had DJ. How they moved in unison, like a team that’d been through shit together.
I want that for myself, for us. Always have.
“And I want us to start actually living in this house. To cook dinners and eat together at the table. I’m constantly constipated from all the takeout.
I wanna sleep in clean fucking sheets and do laundry, not hang out at the clubhouse all the damn time like we’re teenagers again.
And I want to do family stuff on the weekends. ”
“If you cook, I’ll eat,” she smiles through the snot and tears.
“We’ll figure it out,” I tell her, but I don't think I believe it.
*
The week after that, my wife knows she's on thin ice, so she and I eat breakfast together every day, and then we ride to work on my bike. We go grocery shopping and she kisses me in the produce section like we're two teenagers in love.
“You won’t have that metabolism forever,” I tease her when all she puts in the cart are energy drinks and candy bars.
She laughs and says, “Then I’d actually resemble your baby mama. Ew, can you imagine?”
Whatever’s on my face startles her, and she backtracks. “Sorry. I’m still jealous sometimes.”
On Wednesday, she hangs out with her newly released brother before work, and I drive to the nearest toy store to get my boy a birthday gift.
“What does he like?” The saleswoman asks me, and I truly have no idea.
He’s one. He likes to eat, shit, and put stuff in his mouth.
“Feel free to look around and see if anything catches your eye,” she says with a smarmy smile.
I step out and call Marissa. “Hey Riss, I’m at a toy store, and I don’t know what to get DJ for his birthday.”
“I got him a push walker that’s filled with building blocks,” she says, and I hear the smile in her voice. “I saw a great outdoor playset with a swing and a slide. That would be a fun thing to have at his dad’s house, don’t you think?”
“Yes! That’s an awesome idea!” I respond excitedly, and she laughs.
My face hurts from how widely I’m smiling. He’s gonna be blown away by the gift.
“Thanks, Riss, I mean it. I’ll call you tomorrow to congratulate the birthday boy, okay?”
“Okay. Bye.”
“Bye.”
On Thursday, Bell and Angie are hammering out the party details with Sheila. We managed to book her services for next week only after promising her a shit-ton of money to screw over some other people, but it’s worth it for my son’s first birthday party.
I leave them to it and go upstairs to call Marissa.
There’s a lot of noise in the background. Looks like DJ’s party is well underway.
“Hey Riss, is DJ with you?”
“Sorry, no, but he’ll be up from his nap soon, and we’ll call you then, okay?”
I’m quiet, and I don’t even know why.
“Dylan? Hello?” It sounds like Marissa has found a quieter place.
I clear my throat. “Yes, I’m here. Sure, call me when he wakes up.”
“Okay,” she says, but before she can hang up, I ask, “Do you remember the day he was born? It feels like it was only yesterday.”
Marissa laughs like I’m crazy. “Of course, I remember. It was the most unbelievable day of my life.”
I can see it in my mind very clearly, the moment when the doctor took Junior from between Marissa’s legs and laid him on her chest. I couldn’t stop staring at the two of them.
For some reason, I thought he’d be cold to the touch, but when I took him in my arms, he was warm and familiar. I couldn’t fully breathe; it felt like someone was sitting on my chest.
My son.
My son was here.
In that moment, there was no one in the world more important to me than him and Marissa.
How a year can change your life.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “Happy anniversary of giving birth, I guess.”
Marissa doesn’t respond at first.
“Happy anniversary of becoming a dad,” she says after a few moments, and her voice sounds hoarse.
My throat is tight, and my nose is stinging. What is this feeling?
I hear someone calling for her in the background, and she yells out, "I'm coming, honey," before addressing me again, "Sorry, Hawk needs me."
Yeah.
“Call me later, okay?”
“’Kay. Bye.”
I sit on the bed and stare off through the wall into another parallel life that I could have had, until my wife comes upstairs and tells me it’s time to go to work.
I feel off for the rest of the day, and I categorically refuse to think about why that is.