38. Rae
38
RAE
I awake with a kiss for the second time in twenty-four hours.
"Need you awake, baby girl." Digger moves away, his warmth fleeting as he moves to the opposite side of the bed and shoves his brother on the shoulder. "Up and at 'em, Pres."
“The fuck…?” Tyke rolls to his back with a groan, the sheet pulling free of his exquisite torso.
I glance at the finely honed muscles of a well-used body and then shift my attention to tugging on the jeans left on the floor from earlier. "What's going on?"
“We got visitors.”
"At…" Tyke smacks the screen of his phone, which rests on my nightstand. "Two-thirty in the fuckin' morning?"
“Yep.” Digger nods. “Think you wanna see this.”
“Shit,” Tyke groans, moving himself to sit on the edge of the bed, heels of his hands pressed to his eyes. “Right when I was finally fuckin’ getting some proper rest.”
My chest warms at the memory of being tucked against his side, his large hand languidly traveling up and down my back until I drifted off to sleep. He could have demanded anything from me, and I wouldn’t have been in much position to argue, yet one look at how dog tired I am, how weighed down by the impending start of my cycle, and he opted to give me space.
He chose to care for me rather than meet his needs.
I never knew I could love a gesture so damn much.
“You okay?” Digger murmurs as I tug on my sheepskin-lined slipper boots.
“Yeah.” I take his offered arm to balance myself while I pull the second one on. “Better now.” His face falls, and I realize what he probably thinks: that I'm better now because I've been with Tyke. "Better now I have both of my men with me," I clarify.
The coy smile is reward enough and then some.
For once, I allow myself to act on impulse and lean up to press my lips against his. "Missed you."
“Yeah?” Digger doesn’t disappoint, placing his arm behind my back and pinning me against his hard front while he returns the kiss tenfold.
"Hate to break things up," Tyke says without any sarcasm, "but how about we go see what the fuss is about before you two get too involved there?"
“Of course.”
I get a cheeky smack to my ass from Digger as he steps away, then another from Tyke for good measure. “Ladies first,” he rumbles, ushering me after his brother.
I swallow twice, aware a hormonally charged meltdown into tears isn’t what anyone needs right now—even if it is fueled by the swell of appreciation I have for these men.
This club.
These people.
I note Minion stride across the common area as I reach the head of the stairs, one hand rubbing his shaven head while he moves for the door. Hammer glances at our trio as we descend and gives us all a tight nod.
I point to his worn black T-shirt. “It’s on inside out, bud.”
He glances down at himself, shoulders dropping as he sighs. “Shit.”
Digger conceals his grin, following Tyke toward the door while their Tail Gunner fixes his clothing. I glance about the space, seeking out Maddie, yet only find Jamie as she weaves between the men toward me.
"Hey." Her gaze passes over Harvey as he settles on the sofa beside her.
“You know what this is all about?” I glimpse Tyke’s back as he disappears into the yard, Digger close behind and Hammer jogging to catch up.
“Not really.” She carefully leans against the rolled arm opposite Harvey.
I take the seat closest to the fire, forcing her to make it stupidly obvious that she avoids him or give in to her whims and settle where she'd rather be.
At his side.
He watches her intently, curious about her decision also.
“All I heard,” Harvey says, dragging his focus away from Jamie when she refuses to move. “Is that Deo showed up fifteen or so ago.”
"Bit weird that all the officers have gone out to see him, ain't it?" Jamie relents, sitting on the sofa opposite mine, on Harvey's far side. Damn it, girl. “They better not be hurting him. Marco won’t like that.”
I scour the room again. “Has anyone seen Maddie?” Legs tucked up before me, I wrap one arm around my shins.
Harvey shakes his head.
Jamie frowns. “She was down here earlier.”
The door to the yard slides open, punctuating her statement as the woman in question comes flying into the room. “No!” Maddie strides across the floor, damn near sprinting toward the stairs, Deo hot on her trail.
"Babe!" He jogs toward her, closing the gap between them while the three of us assembled on the furniture watch in rapt silence. "Why not?"
The duo disappears up the staircase, argument fading with them, as a sleep-addled Kane emerges on the landing.
“What the fuck was that about?” He thumbs toward the direction of the bickering couple.
"No idea," Harvey answers. "But I'd say it has something to do with why the officers are all out in the yard."
“They are?” Kane drops down the risers, slow and measured like a goddamn panther.
My gaze drags over his bare torso, ink on clear display, yet it's the feel of his decorated hands that still tickles at my throat. I bite back a gasp when my attention lands on the burgeoning black eye and split lip that mar his otherwise perfect face.
I’d be a fool not to think that’s because of me.
Because of what he did.
Kane’s gaze snaps to mine as he reaches the floor. “Mommy,” he quips.
I glance away and roll my eyes toward the ceiling. Despite his obvious punishment, not much seems to have changed, then.
“Cut it out, Kane.” Harvey frowns at his brother.
"What?" The fucker stalks to stand before the fire as though highlighted by the flames of hell themselves. "She wants to shack up with Dad, so it's only a matter of time before she wants us callin’ her that.”
“You have a mother, Kane,” I grit through a stiff jaw. “And she seems to have done a bang-up job raising you already."
He lunges forward, bending to arc over me—face a storm.
I don’t offer him the satisfaction of cowering from his advance. Back straight, I hold the fucker’s eye and lift an eyebrow. “And right now, all you’re doing is proving my point.”
A slow smirk graces his lips, and he moves back to the fire again, hands held ninety degrees at his sides to warm his palms. With his attention on his brother, he asks, "Why are the officers out there? What's goin' down?"
“If I knew, I would’a said,” Harvey snaps.
Jamie chooses this moment to do what she should have at the start: she moves to his side, placing a small hand gently atop his leg as Harvey gives his older brother a death stare.
Oh, how the tides have turned.
When I arrived, the brothers were thick as thieves, Harvey looking up to his older brother while he tailed him around the town. But somewhere along the way, the blindfold fell from Harvey's eyes. He's not a stranger to his brother's arrogance anymore, blind to the way he causes trouble for no other reason than sheer entertainment.
"I'm sure we'll learn soon enough what they're up to."
"Are you now?" Kane folds his arms, a position that highlights his proclivity to work out, given his rounded shoulders, high traps, and thick biceps.
I'm sure the sight has women fawning over him most days, but for me, it's akin to staring a yawning lion square in the mouth. All he does is remind me how much stronger he is.
How much more dangerous.
The familiar wash of hopelessness drains the blood from my head, vertigo a quick chaser. I lay my head back on the sofa and let the intrusive thoughts run through my mind like a free-flowing river after rain. You're no use here. There's no bright future for you after this. You'll never be safe. Thinking anything will be any different is a joke. Your fucking parents grew tired of you; they will here too. Nobody wants you; they're just too nice to say it. Fuck.
I’m closer than I thought.
The predictable cumulation of my self-loathing hurts like a goddamn nail through my heart. You should end it. No. I close my eyes and combat the negative thoughts with positive ones. This feeling is temporary. You know happiness. You felt it today—with Digger and with Tyke. You felt love with Maddie. You belong here, and your thoughts are a liar. Ironic, considering thoughts are exactly what I grasp ahold of to save myself every month.
“You okay?” Jamie leans over the arm of her sofa, stealing a moment while Kane and Harvey talk.
“Yeah.” What would she do if I said no? What could she do? “I just need a minute.”
I need a minute to get my head on straight, to let the hormones shift, and to let the chemical chain reaction do its thing.
I open my eyes to find Kane and Harvey watching me. "You sure?" Harvey asks. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
My own. "Yeah. I'm sure." The added attention spikes my anxiety, my heart rate picking up, muscles tensing. Shit.
“You about to have a mental breakdown or some shit?” Kane laughs, but even his attempt at ridiculing me sounds half-hearted.
“Leave her alone,” Jamie scolds.
"What?" he argues, hand outstretched toward me. "She looks like she's about to start crying or some shit."
“Honestly.” I rise from the seat, hand outstretched. “I’m fine. I just need a minute.” My goddamn arm shakes.
I catalog the stares of the three club kids, and swallow down the brick of loneliness as my fears register again. I don't belong here, not with them.
I’m nothing like these people, and I never will be.
Shit. I thought I was making progress. I honestly believed I’d turned a corner this past week, despite the fucking stress of everything going on.
My hip collects the edge of the sofa in my piss-poor attempt at fleeing the room as the panic rises, a vice grip around my throat. I eye the stairs, decide they're a fucking bad idea when my head swims, and redirect to Tyke's room in search of sanctuary.
The minute I step through the door, I realize what a bad idea it is to isolate myself. The sinister thought train throws another load of coal in the fire and pumps its rods. It's so much easier to believe the bullshit you feed yourself when there's nobody around to refute the lies. Yet, there's also a strength found when forced to do it alone.
Like I have so many times before.
I drop to the floor beside Tyke’s bed and back myself into a corner made of his mattress and nightstand. Legs bent before me, I wrap my arms around them and bury my face against my knees, pushing my eye sockets against the protruding edges of the joint to feel something. Anything. A reminder to focus on the here and now.
It’ll be okay. It has to be. I haven’t come this far to quit now. One more day. Twenty-four hours max and this shit will ease. This shit will ease, and then it's the countdown until it happens again. Fuck. My panic flows at the reminder there’s no escaping this bullshit as long as I bleed. Control what you can control—here and now. Focus on the now. On the cool floorboards beneath my butt. The shadow cast by Tyke’s bedroom door. The smell of leather and liniment. The ache in my hip.
I count my breaths, throw every goddamn trick I've learned at the fucking mental shift, and bury my head again to pray.
Please. Pass soon. Make it quick this month. Fuck—I can’t do this.
“Rae?”
I jolt at the sound of the last goddamn voice I’d ever expect to call my name right now. “Yeah?”
Kane steps into the doorway. He studies me in silence, his frown still fucking there and a slight scowl on his lips.
“Look, I really can’t handle any more shit from you, so if you’ve got nothing useful to say, just go,” I snap. “If they forced you to apologize or?—”
“They didn’t.” He leans his shoulder against the door jam and folds his arms. “What’s goin’ on?”
"I don't know what they're doing outside, okay? I?—"
“I meant with you.”
Fuck. I don’t need this pressure. “I’m having that menty B you so eagerly wanted.” Tears crest my cheeks. Fuck it.
“I can see that.”
“If you want to ridicule me, now is not the time.” Not when my psyche only needs one more match…
"I don't." He draws a deep breath and glances over his shoulder as though concerned somebody might overhear him. “I’m sorry about giving you shit. I thought you were stronger.”
A jaded laugh barks from deep in my chest. “The fuck? That’s your apology. You’re sorry I wasn’t stronger. Not that you fucking showered me with your hate for no fucking reason other than to make yourself feel vindicated about some shit I bet has nothing to do with me.”
He chews his bottom lip, glancing to the floor as I throw my hate his way. “Fair point.”
“Of course, it’s fucking fair,” I exclaim, hands tossed at my sides. “Anything else you’d like to get off your chest before I go kill myself?”
His head snaps up, eyes hard. I count the flares of his nostrils as his brow twitches into a deeper frown.
Shit. I didn’t mean to say that, but fuck, it is what it is at this stage. Welcome to my period cycle, asshole.
“Nobody decides when we die but fate itself,” he grumbles. “You don’t get to choose that.”
"No?" I sob, slumping against the bed. "Then why the fuck does my head try so damn hard every month to convince me?" Fuck it—let him see what this is.
Let him have a real reason to pity me.
It’s all I fucking do.
“What do you mean every month?” He edges closer, dropping to his haunches, hands slung between his knees.
"It doesn't matter," I mumble. "It's girl problems. It'll pass."
“Doesn’t look like it will.”
“Trust me.” I stretch my legs out and pat the puffy lump where my uterus tries to balloon out of my jeans. “It will.”
He curls his nose as though the revelation disgusts him. Yet he doesn't stand and leave like I expect. Kane damn well drops to his ass, too, turning to lean against the bed like I am.
We sit in silence for a long, painfully awkward minute before he speaks again.
“Look, I’m sorry for choking the shit out of you earlier.”
“Apology not accepted.”
He tips his head, eyebrows bopping as though to say, “Fair call.” He lets out a long, slow breath before licking his lips to speak. "When Mom left, I blamed myself for so long." He tips his head forward, longer shanks of his hair falling to partially shield his eyes as he rolls his jaw. "I thought I was the reason they split since I couldn't hide where she was from Dad. If I'd been stronger, bigger, I could have gotten her home all by myself, and he never would have known."
“That’s a big ask of yourself, Kane.”
"I know that now." He offers a flat-lipped smile, eyes softening. "But it tried to pull me under for a good few years there. Every time I saw Maddie struggle without Mom there when she became a woman. Every time I saw Dad try to comfort Harvey but fail to be soft enough after havin' to stay hard for the club. I thought it was my fault we missed out on having a mom." He shakes his head, lifting a knee to rest his arm atop, head back against the bed. "I'd see my friends and their moms at the school events or hosting birthday parties, and I'd get angry. Mad and jealous they had something I didn't." Kane glances my way, assessing my silence.
I daren’t interrupt him. Not when he’s being so damn vulnerable. Answering my questions about why he’s the way he is.
“My point is,” he says with a hint of shame at how much he’s revealed already, “Is that I went through my dark times alone. I didn’t get help because I didn’t want anyone to see how weak I was. I channeled it into another feeling and let that one take over instead.” He rolls his head to pin me with a playful stare. “Bet you can guess what it is.”
“Rage,” I whisper.
“Exactly.” He sighs, rolling his head back to face away again. “Don’t be me, Rae. Get help. Let us help. Well…” He smiles. Actually, fucking smiles, teeth and all. “Maybe Harvey and Jamie. Uncle Dig. I’m not the best choice. But Rae…” He twists to face me again. “Don’t let this get the better of you. Especially because of me.”
“Then stop being an asshole.”
“Putting people under pressure is what I was taught makes them stronger.” He glances to the floor. “But yeah, it did make it easier to do when you hooked into Dad.”
“I didn’t ‘hook into’ him,” I murmur. “I tried to resist this thing. Do you know that? It was your father and uncle who convinced me it’d be okay.”
He stays quiet, a tic in his jaw.
“Why are you trying to be nice now if you detest me so damn much?”
"Trying." He laughs at the word. "You got that right. Shit. I don't know. I guess I just see how fucking happy you make my old man. It's been a real long time since I've seen him like that. It's good, Rae, even if you and I have some work to do."
“Understatement,” I mutter.
"Plus, Maddie ain't in a good place either. I think you two need each other now more than ever." He runs his gaze the length of me and then looks away again. "If makin' things work with you is how I get to keep her, then so fuckin' be it."
I duck my head, shame hot in the pit of my stomach. He's right: Maddie and I need each other. Where have I been? Consumed by my own needs.
Kane thrusts a thick finger into my arm, drawing my attention to him. “Hearing you say you want to take yourself away from them? And in the worst fucking way? It doesn’t sit right.”
“It shouldn’t.”
“So, use the club for what it’s here for, Rae—lean on us when it gets too hard to stand alone. There’s a reason why people are stronger when they stand together. There’s a reason why people join for a little chaos or the reputation but stay for life.” He sighs out his nose, studying me curled against the furniture. “Just don’t break my fucking family’s heart because you couldn’t set your pride aside and take the help on offer.”
I duck my head and swallow back the tears, fucking sure if I try to speak, all that'll come out is a sad little hiccupped sob. Fuck . Of all the people… “Thank you.” My voice cracks.
“Sure.” He rises to his feet, stiffening when firm footsteps reach the doorway. “Dad.”
“What the fuck have you done now?” Tyke strides into the room, past Kane, to squat down and check on me.
“It’s fine,” I assure him, touching his cheek despite how brazen the movement feels in front of his son. “Kane was helping me.”
"Helping?" Tyke chuckles. "That word doesn't fit the same sentence as my son's name."
“Well, it did today.” I look over his shoulder to find his oldest gone.
As though Kane were a fever dream.
“I need you to come outside,” Tyke states, rising to his feet. “If you’re up for it.”
Am I? I glance about the room, at the visage that moments ago made me feel as though the world were foreign and not my own. "Of course." Accepting his hand, I let him help me to my feet and thread my fingers between his to move for the door.
Sure enough, given time, the feelings passed. The pain subsided.
And all I’m left with is a hollow ache where my happiness should be.