Epilogue
Camellia
Dutch
“So what’d you decide?”
Dutch asked this question sitting on his ass on a
folded-over throw, one of two Georgie had put in his truck for this purpose. A
throw that was covering a layer of snow.
And he asked it with his eyes aimed at the weathered bottle
of tequila that lay at the base of his father’s gravestone.
That bottle was mostly full, and it had been there for
years.
Dutch had no idea how it lasted that long without being
nabbed by some vagrant or asshole kid.
Maybe it was the ghost of his dad that protected it, seeing
as his mom put it there.
Maybe it was just obvious this was a biker’s grave, it had
the Chaos insignia etched into it, and the specter of their Club protected it.
Whatever reason, it hadn’t moved for six years.
“Stanford,” Carlyle said, sitting on a throw at his side.
“It’s closer to home than Massachusetts.”
Dutch got that.
And Stanford was far from a bad choice.
“You come here a lot?” Carlyle asked.
“No. But often enough he knows I haven’t forgotten him,”
Dutch answered.
Carlyle didn’t say anything.
Dutch didn’t fill the silence.
They both stared at the black marble tombstone.
Carlyle broke the silence and he did it using a voice so
quiet, Dutch barely heard him.
Since Dutch was listening hard, though, he heard.
“Do you think he’s around somehow to know?”
“Yeah,” Dutch said.
Carlyle had nothing to say to that.
“Though, doesn’t matter,” Dutch went on. “I don’t forget
him. And I make a point to make sure he knows I don’t forget him, if he’s out
there somewhere to see, or not. But the bottom line is, his son is a man who
makes that effort. And he does because his father was a man who deserves it.
And that’s all that matters.”
It took a few beats, then Carlyle muttered, “Yeah.” He
cleared his throat and said, “I haven’t been back. To Dad’s grave. Since the
funeral. Mom and Christian go. I don’t.”
It was Dutch’s turn to say nothing.
Carlyle was back to muttering when he said, “I should go.”
“You should do what you feel is right for you. What I do is
what I do. You’ll figure out what you gotta do and
it’ll be right for you.”
“I see it in my dreams,” he blurted. “The hit. The blood.
Him going down. The look on his face when I was pressin’
on the wound, thinking I could stop the bleeding. Him sayin’
in that raspy voice that wasn’t how he normally talked, ‘Get outta here, son.’”
Dutch said nothing. Didn’t move.
His heart hurt, but he didn’t move.
He stared at a grave and listened.
“But his last words were, ‘Your momma…’ then he was just
gone.” Carlyle whispered. “And it’s whacked because I think there’s something
right about that. How I was there with him, but his last thoughts were of my
mom. And I think what he was going to say was that he wanted me to take care of
my mom.”
With that, Dutch clapped him on the back, but that was all
he did before he returned his wrist to his bent knee, murmured, “That is far
from whacked,” and went on listening.
“Mom knows I’m having bad dreams but I’m lying to her and tellin’ her I’m not because I don’t want her to worry,”
Carlyle shared.
“Stop doing that, Car,” Dutch advised. “She needs you and
you need her, and you all need to share this shit. Only balm she’s got right
now is you and your sister. She’s got a piece of him right there through both
of you. Trust me, that means everything. You gotta
let her take care of you. It’ll help her. Like it helps you to take care of
her. I didn’t know him, but ’spect your dad would
want that. You all lookin’ out for each other.”
It took a beat, but then he said, “You’re right. He’d want
that.”
“You tell her your dad’s last words?”
It was forced when Carlyle said, “No.”
“You need to find a time to do that, man. She should know.”
“Yeah,” Carlyle said low.
They were silent another while before Carlyle again cleared
his throat and stated, “You know, we got friends. Family. But when I go off to
college—”
Dutch didn’t make him finish.
“I’ll look after them.”
He wasn’t looking at the guy, but he still felt him relax.
“I think, uh…the first time I go, you know, if I, um, lose
it or something, I should, uh…without them…”
He felt Carlyle’s eyes, so he turned his head to look at
him.
“Will you take me to his grave?” he asked.
“You wanna go now?” Dutch asked in
return.
“Yeah, if you—”
Dutch pushed up to his feet, saying, “Let’s go.”
Carlyle pushed up too, but he did it with his eyes to Graham
Black’s grave. “Do you want a minute to say goodbye?”
Dutch looked down at the tombstone and said, “Later, Dad.”
A burst of quick, deep laughter came from Carlyle and Dutch
returned his attention to the kid.
“Just like that?” he asked.
“Sure,” Dutch said. “My dad was a seriously laidback guy.”
Carlyle was grinning as he bent to grab his throw.
Dutch nabbed his.
They were walking to Dutch’s truck when Carlyle queried,
“You think your dad would like me?”
He told him the truth.
“My dad liked everybody.” Dutch lifted his hand and squeezed
the back of Carlyle’s neck and left it there before he finished, “But he’d really
fuckin’ like you.”
Carlyle did the same to Dutch’s neck and replied, “My dad
would dig you too.”
They held on that way for a bit, until they both felt it was
weird, then they let go and finished walking to the truck.
They got in.
And Dutch drove Carlyle to go visit his dad.
“Babe,” he growled into the phone.
And he’d become accustomed to the growling gig considering
Georgiana was now a fixture in his life, and proof was that night they were
celebrating their one-month anniversary, or what Georgiana had declared was
their one-month anniversary. That being one month from when he picked her up
from the airport.
She’d made them a reservation at the Palace Arms.
He’d set Tyra and Elvira on a mission.
Which was where he was heading to discover the results, with
his phone to his ear, listening to his woman say shit that did not make him
happy.
“Dutch,” was her only response.
“I thought this decision was made,” he said, and pointed
out, “by you.”
“She’s sold so much stuff, it’s insane. I’ve seen the
receipts. And she’s working so many shifts, she’s bleary-eyed. The only good
part about that is she’s not at Dad’s much, because if she hears another
football game droning in the background, she might bomb NFL headquarters. And
if she wakes up to Michelle making her breakfast to order again, she might
throw herself off a cliff.”
“Dutch!”
He stopped on his way from the shop, across the forecourt,
heading to Tyra’s office at the garage, when he heard Rush’s call.
He looked toward the Compound, saw Rush jogging his way, and
jerked up his chin to the brother.
“And she’s going to pay rent,” Georgie finished in his ear.
“How ’bout you give her more time to prove herself,” he
suggested.
“Is this another conversation?” she asked.
And her tone was one he didn’t like.
“What kind of conversation?” he asked back.
Rush stopped in front of him and Dutch gave him a one-minute
finger.
“Maybe I made an assumption,” she muttered.
“What assumption?” he pushed.
“I haven’t left your house since I entered it, I mean, in
that way. Half my clothes are at your place, you gave me three drawers, and you
only have six. All my toiletries…”
Yup.
They were That Couple.
Met. Didn’t hit it off with a bang. Hit it off with a bigger
bang. Now inseparable.
He sensed his mother was moderately worried, though only
moderately.
For his part, Dutch would probably tie Georgie to his bed if
she tried to spend the night alone at her place.
“…I thought since I wasn’t using it, and Carolyn’s going to
pay rent, since I was—”
“You’re moved in, Georgie, maybe not officially, but only
because we’ve been busy. Let Carolyn crash at your pad. We’ll discuss how and
when we’ll make our sitch official when we have
time.”
She sounded dubious, and a little freaked, when she asked,
“You sure?”
He gave Rush a look, and Rush turned his attention elsewhere
as Dutch gave the man his shoulder and said, “This isn’t about us. We’re solid.
You slept anywhere but beside me, even if we’re fightin’,
I’d lose my mind. It’s about her. She did my brother dirty. Fucked with your
head. You might be there with her, but I’m not. Not yet. But it’s not my pad.
You’re okay with it, then I’m okay with it. But the minute she jacks you over
for rent, we’ll have another discussion. Deal?”
“Yeah, Dutch.”
“See you tonight?”
“Of course.”
“Rush wants a word, I gotta go.”
“All right. Later, honey. Love you.”
Dutch stilled.
“Dutch?”
She was over it, she sounded casual now, calling out to him
because he hadn’t said his final goodbye.
But she’d just told him she loved him.
He knew it was going there, for both of them.
Hell, he knew it was already there for him….and her.
But neither of them had said it.
“Later, baby. Love you too,” he replied.
“Cute,” she said and hung up.
He swallowed the lump in his throat and turned his attention
to his brother.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“You got a second?”
He had all of them that day that didn’t involve time with
Georgie.
He nodded.
“Right, well, I got a situation,” Rush declared.
Dutch tensed. “What kind of situation?”
“The thing, with your boy, Carlyle…”
Dutch tensed even more.
“…it’s made it clear the brothers are restless.”
That wasn’t what he expected.
“Sorry, Rush, don’t get what you’re sayin’,”
he told him when the man said no more.
Rush put his hands on his hips and stated, “Brother, we had
decades where we were men with a mission. Now we got a few years under our
belts where things are copacetic. Situation is, the men are not men who are
good with managing an auto supply store and building rides for customers, the
majority of whom are assholes who got money with the occasional joe who knows
cool.”
Dutch just stood there, staring at the president of his MC,
knowing he had not once thought he might be the only brother in his Club who
felt adrift.