Chapter 30
Marissa
“What are you working on?” Molly asks me.
I look up from the intricate scales I’ve been embroidering for the last hour. Her shirt says, Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural.
For the first time since we broke up, I remember Dylan without bitterness. I wonder what he would think about this one.
“My birthday present for the twins,” I explain.
“Oh! When is it?” She asks as she sits down across from me.
“This Saturday.”
“June 4, making them… Gemini, how about that?” Molly says with a small laugh, then frowns at my work. “What are you making?”
“It’s a shiner fish patch. ’Cause of his road name, you know.”
She raises her eyebrows. “I had no idea Tom was into fishing.”
It’s my turn to raise eyebrows. Tom? Guess Hawk was right about her crush on Shiner. Huh.
“And I imagine you made a mushroom for Mushroom?”
“Oh my God, wait ’til you see it,” I tell her excitedly as I search for the finished patch in my craft box.
“Wow, you’re really good,” Molly says as she runs her thumb over the red mushroom cap. “And these white spots are blended in so smoothly. Honestly, you should sell these.”
As silly as it sounds, her praise makes me feel valuable. “I don’t know about that, they’re just for friends. But thank you.”
“They’re gonna love these, they’re so thoughtful and personal.”
“They loved the patch I made Hawk, and that gave me the idea.”
The memory of Hawk proudly parading his patch around the compound and telling everyone who’d listen about it makes me smile.
“Speaking of presents, did you manage to hide that terrifying plushie Mushroom got DJ?” I ask with a grimace, and Molly laughs.
“Eddie? Nope, haven’t even tried, DJ loves him too much.”
Hawk explained that the creature was the mascot of Mushroom’s favorite band, but that didn’t make him any less inappropriate as a toddler toy, in my view.
“You'd better start thinking about where to store all the toy bikes and HD baby merch he’s gonna get at the Wolves’ party,” Molly tells me.
“Dylan can keep those. Is that what they always got you?”
“Back when they celebrated my birthdays, they did. I’m sure Ryder still gets tons of stuff.
And since he’s a boy, there’s gonna be a real bike and a car waiting for him as soon as he’s 16.
Ugh. Sorry,” Molly says and shakes her head like she’s trying to dislodge the thoughts from it.
“I love my brother, but… our father is an asshole.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” I say and squeeze her hand.
Although Sly's always been a shit dad to her, I still feel a little guilty whenever I think of my role in his imprisonment.
“Maybe he’s the reason I’m into older guys who don’t want me. Daddy issues,” Molly says self-deprecatingly.
“I have my fair share of those, so I get it. Family is weird. Hawk got me one of those DNA kits, find-your-ancestors or whatever, since I don’t even know my dad’s name. But I’ve been delaying sending it in. Rachel would probably call me a coward.”
Molly smiles. “Would she be right?”
My heart aches at the thought that I’ll probably never speak to Rach again.
“Yeah. I don’t understand myself. My whole life, I’ve been wondering about the other half of me.
People say someone’s a chip off the old block.
What does that make me? A splinter that doesn’t know what tree it came from?
And now that I have the chance to find out, I’m paralyzed.
I guess my fear of rejection is stronger than my curiosity. ”
Then she frowns. “Is fear why you shut down my business idea?”
My cheeks warm. “I really don’t think my patches are good enough to be sold.”
“Despite my telling you they are? I don't say things just to be polite, Marissa. You need to believe me.”
I don’t want Molly to think I’m a crybaby, so I press my lips together.
“Maybe I do.”
*
The party started out wonderfully.
First, we had a barbecue at the clubhouse, then we all went for a celebratory ride, and now we’re back in Rat Park for cake and dancing.
The twins’ parents, Barb and Robert, share several amusing anecdotes from their childhood, much to Shroomie’s chagrin.
When it's time to open the presents, my patches are the biggest hit, although Hawk’s offerings of Iron Maiden merch for Shroomie and some new fishing gear for Shiner are a close second. That is, until Cotton shows up and gifts Shroomie a whole live rabbit.
“You didn’t!” She screeches.
“Ever since we saw that movie, I knew this was going to be your gift,” he says victoriously.
“Oh my God, thank you,” Mushroom hugs him with tears in her eyes, and he squeezes her tightly.
They stand like that for a long time, until Cotton snaps out of it and breaks the hug.
He gives Mushroom a kiss on the temple. “Happy birthday, Alice.”
When I saw him talking to the twins’ parents earlier, he seemed so animated that I joked to Hawk, “Looks like he’s auditioning to be Mushroom’s boyfriend.”
“Took him long enough,” Hawk replied.
I glance at Shiner, and he’s watching Cotton too, only his eyes are narrowed, and his jaw is tense. He's not buying it.
“Thank God Hammer isn’t here,” Uncle whispers to our group as we watch Lucy dance with the man she introduced as “my boyfriend, David.”
“Yeah, the Morales siblings are batting two for two tonight,” Hawk says, and my stomach twists at the memory of how Red had stormed off when Doc walked in with Dana as his date.
She later returned, pretending nothing out of the ordinary had happened, but I knew. We all knew.
“Speaking of people who aren’t here,” Uncle says, “where’s my buddy DJ tonight?”
I jump at the chance to talk about something else. “He’s with his dad this weekend. Oh my God, he took his first steps yesterday, wait ’til you see this. Look!”
“Wow. What a special moment. And you managed to capture it on video forever,” Uncle says.
“I can’t stop watching it,” Hawk admits.
“I don’t know why they call it baby steps,” Cash remarks. “Look at him lurch into the unknown.”
I widen my eyes at the man who has, admittedly, been the biggest enigma in the club. So gruff and curt, and at times even antisocial, yet he crochets and, for DJ’s birthday, set up and contributed to a 529.
Later, Bev told me he does that for all the club kids, in addition to making sure the parents do sound financial planning for their futures.
And he's not scoffing at the video I'm showing him. Would you look at that.
“Did you get them to play this?” I ask Hawk as he leads me to the dancefloor when Witchy Woman comes on.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says with a secretive little smile.
We’re covered by a fairy light canopy as we slow dance, then jump, sway, and laugh for the next five songs. It’s the most fun I’ve had in ages.
As I knock on Hawk’s door later that night, I know that I'm standing on the precipice of something exciting. I think back to Cash’s words about baby steps. Lurching into the unknown indeed.
Hawk opens his door wearing only his pajama bottoms. I let my eyes slowly travel over every inch of his muscular chest and torso. I’m naked under my bathrobe, and when he notices, his eyes become dangerously dark. He wordlessly holds out a hand to me, and I step inside his room.
I am the brave one this time. I walk him to his bed, and as soon as he sits down, I straddle him.
“You’re always so warm,” I tell him as I run my palms up and down his chest, enjoying the texture of the coarse hair there.
It does something for me, maybe because it makes him look strong and manly and sexy.
“Why don’t we warm you up too?” he proposes as he slides the bathrobe down my shoulders.
The tension is prickling the air. For the briefest of moments, I worry about baring my boobs; I worry that Hawk might not like them. Then I remember that I don’t have to earn this man’s love with my looks or my performance in bed.
“Fuck, you’re breathtaking,” Hawk exclaims once I’m fully naked in his presence for the first time. “Do you want me to open the curtains again?”
I laugh, surprised and a little embarrassed that he noticed. “Not this time.”
We both grin like idiots while kissing. I can’t stop touching his face, savoring the slight stubble under my fingertips. I’m sure my face and lips will be red tomorrow, but it’s worth this bite of pain mixed in with the pleasure.
Hawk kisses the hollow of my throat before making his way down to my breasts. He kneads, sucks, licks, bites, tugs, and I squirm on his lap until I can’t take it anymore.
“Hawk,” I plead, and he looks up with a mischievous smile.
“Let me grab a condom from the bathroom,” he says, and practically pours a bucket of ice-cold water on me.
“Oh, sorry, I thought you wanted to have sex tonight,” he says when he feels me stiffen.
“I do,” I say quickly.
How do you tell a man that condoms feel awful and dry you out to the point that you can’t enjoy sex, not even with lube, but that every hormonal birth control you tried so far made you bleed for months, without ruining the mood?
“I hate condoms. But I’m also not on birth control.”
“Oh, okay.” Hawk’s body relaxes under mine, which reminds me how awkward it is to have a conversation naked on a dressed lap. “I’m clean, I get tested every year as part of my physical at work, and I haven’t had any partners this year.”
My eyebrows go up.
“The hospital tested me after the kidnapping, and it’s a safe day. I should get my period in two days… If you trust me.”
“Of course, I trust you, baby,” he says matter-of-factly, and gently moves my hair away from my face.
The gesture makes my nose sting.
Stupidly, I keep talking. “I’m not trying to babytrap you.”
“Oh, sweetheart. I’d be the one babytrapping you, believe me. Would you trust me to pull out if it wasn’t a safe day?”
My answer comes without hesitation. “I would.”
“So we’re on the same page then.”
Kissing him feels more significant after this.
The fire inside me is soon reawakened, and I tug at Hawk’s pajama bottoms. He obliges me only too readily, and his stomach muscles flex impressively as he lifts his pelvis (and me) to pull his pants down to mid-thigh.
The solid curve of his hard cock twitches when I touch it. I rub my swollen, sensitive lips against it to coat it with my wetness before easing myself down on it.
I try to memorize Hawk's face when he enters me for the first time, even though the urge to close my eyes is almost overwhelming.
I gasp at the pure amazement in his expression, like he can’t believe we’re doing this.
“How are you feeling?” Hawk asks me once I’ve taken all of him.
One of his hands is on my left thigh, the other on my face. I nuzzle against his palm.
“Happy.”
The smile lights up his face. “Me too, baby.”
He rocks into me, hitting all the right spots. There’s this itch inside me, and I’m frantically trying to get some relief. He strokes my ass as he helps me ride him the way I want to.
“Like this, huh?” He asks me, and I quicken my motions in response. “Look how wet you are for me, baby; it’s all over my thighs.”
He’s gleaming with sweat, his taut muscles flexing as he pushes me closer to ecstasy with every stroke.
“Yes, Marissa, give it to me, that’s it,” Hawk pleads with me.
His lips have parted, and his lids are heavy.
“He’s barely hanging on,” I think, and the heady pride makes me tighten hard around him.
He tells me how wet I am, how tight, how perfect, how beautiful I look riding him.
Finally, he sinks his teeth into the flesh of my breast, and the thought that it might leave a mark excites me more than I know what to do with. I want him to bite even harder.
“Oh God, that’s so good,” I whimper as I press my face to his, closing my eyes as I pulse and pulse and pulse.
“Please, Marissa, look at me,” Hawk gasps as thick spurts of his semen fill me.
The hot, tickling sensation it causes inside me almost makes me cum again.
The intensity of my orgasm, combined with the aftershocks of his, knocks something in my chest loose. It is cathartic and wonderful, even though I struggle to catch my breath.
Luckily, Hawk seems to get it, and he keeps me in a tight bear hug and patiently strokes my back until the sensation dies down and everything in me relaxes.
“Everything okay?” He asks between soft little hair-kisses.
I nod. “But I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Hold on,” he says, then reaches for a shirt that’s on his bed and folds it before gently pressing it between my legs.
I shoot him a grateful smile before waddling off to the bathroom while holding it in place.
“I’ll shower in your bathroom, but we’ll sleep in here, okay?” Hawk calls out to me after a while.
My heart flutters. “Okay!”
Hawk’s sober board reads 2442. I look at myself in the mirror. My face is flushed, my eyes impossibly big, my hair a mess. And even though my lips and the skin around them are irritated, I look beautiful. And alive.
*
“Good morning,” I croak out.
Hawk looks up from his newspaper and dazzles me with his smile. It should be illegal to look this good in the morning.
“Morning,” he says. “Did you sleep well?”
“I did,” I say while stretching under the covers.
Hawk gestures towards my nightstand. “I brought you your coffee.”
“Thank you,” I say, and we relax into being a couple in bed on a Sunday morning.
Hawk puts his head in my lap, and I absentmindedly caress him while I drink my coffee. He closes his eyes and almost purrs.
“I should go make breakfast, but I can’t bring myself to leave. You in my bed,” he says, then sighs, “nothing beats that. I can’t wait to wake up with you like this for the rest of our lives.”
My hand stills. Hawk opens his eyes and gives me a big grin.
“I also can’t wait to show you that I can last longer than eight minutes.”
I snicker. “It was a great eight minutes. My thighs are sore as is. Any longer and I would’ve fallen off.” Hawk’s belly laugh makes me want to keep going. “I need to do more squats.”
I’m in the middle of my shower concert, advising people to run to the hills, courtesy of Shroomie’s party playlist, when my phone rings. I let it. I’ll call back when I’m done. Only, it rings again, somehow more shrill and persistent this time.
Something inside me sits up, and my stomach tenses. I run out of the shower, grabbing the towel as I try not to slip on the tiles.
It’s Dylan.
“Hello?”
“Marissa,” he says, then stops.
“Hey, what’s up?” I ask as I maneuver the towel around myself with one hand.
“I’m…” again, he breaks off.
I frown. Maybe the signal is bad.
“Marissa, Junior’s been in a car accident.”