Chapter 17 – Oske
Chapter Seventeen
Oske
Several Months Ago
Specifically, information. There’s major drama going on with the Shaw family and I’m stuck in the middle of something that I accidentally got caught up in while working on construction for The Fire Spot.
Cody Hollingsworth stopped by with a truck full of lumber on his way to Boston and we had a few drinks together.
Like most of these bikers, he’s pretty easy to loosen up with beer and weed.
Cody told me a lot about what’s going on with Tylee, including something he saw that he’s been too scared to tell Wyatt.
He is pretty sure that Tylee is planning to dump the kids with Selma Sinclair and run off with some guy – he wouldn’t tell me who, so I don’t know if he even knows the guy or if it’s typical dude-paranoia.
Cody also wouldn’t tell me why he has those suspicions, but he insisted that we couldn’t believe anything that Selma said.
He also said that Tylee was an entitled brat who needed to be beaten, but I sincerely hope that was just a drunken rant and not a serious comment on how he felt the bikers should handle their affairs.
Wyatt doesn’t believe Selma could be involved, but I sent my brothers out to Selma’s place to investigate.
I hope they don’t screw up this time, because if they do, I will send them off to live with Owen again.
They like staying close to the rez these days, which is new for them.
I like to think it’s my tenderness, but it’s probably related to the weed money they get doing petty errands for the Barbarians.
They scare me. So does Selma Sinclair.
That woman is a problem on her own, but I stay out of the way as much as possible when dealing with the older generation of biker chicks. They’re a crazy, tough crowd, and I don’t want to get into altercations with any woman who has been throwing hands since Nixon was in office.
I’m just lucky that Tylee Shaw Sinclair still trusts me, although if Wyatt presses me about those stupid divorce papers, she won’t trust me long enough for me to pinpoint her exact location and more importantly, where she brought the kids.
This Selma tip gives me something to work with when I next talk to Tylee.
Maybe I can get her to give the kids up willingly.
If she’s going to leave them behind, I don’t see why it makes a difference if they’re with Selma or with their father.
Isaac is a good dad. I’m no fan of the bikers, but every time he came to the Fire Spot to drink, he would show me pictures of those kids on his phone until he passed out.
Yes, I would sometimes lift a twenty dollar bill or two out of his wallet during those vulnerable moments, but that doesn’t make them any less touching.
I understand that the Rebel Barbarians are a bunch of brutish, abundantly stupid men.
But what Tylee’s doing just isn’t fair to her kids.
I open up The Fire Spot at around 11 a.m. each day to prepare for the first wave of nonexistent tourists.
Cody told me rumors about where they went too.
They’re scared, he says. Everybody in the country is scared.
I’m not sure if I believe him. Maybe they’re broke. I would believe that. But I don’t think white people in this country are scared at all of the beast they created. Whatever.
The loud, sputtering sound of a motorcycle outside takes my mind off of all the stupid biker drama.
With all the shit going on these days, I put my pistol into my pocket and walk outside to see who just parked at the bar minutes after opening.
The sleek, black chrome bike stops neatly in front of where I parked my brand new white car.
A short figure dressed all in black steps off of it and takes her helmet off. It’s really her.
“Hello,” she says, setting the helmet on the motorcycle seat. “Long time no see.”
I can’t believe this.
“What are you doing here?” I ask her. My voice shakes and if I even knew a little bit who would be waiting for me outside that door, I would have tucked a cigarette behind my ear.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“Shut up.”
Brinley Sinclair comes racing towards me and wraps me in a big hug, but I can’t believe she’s here.
I slowly wrap my arms around her and hold her closely.
Nope. She’s here. In the flesh. After everything.
And she still has that stupid blue hair.
And that stupid septum ring. And those stupid green eyes.
“I missed you, Oske,” she says.
“What are you doing here?” I repeat, but I don’t let go of her.
I can’t believe how little she’s changed since I last saw her.
She’s still short, curvy, still covered in freckles because she refuses to wear sunscreen.
She still smells like patchouli and that palo santo she insists is magical.
Her stupid, totally ineffective white girl magic.
But the tears in my eyes are still real.
I force myself to let go of her. Brinley confuses me. She always has. We’ve always known that we couldn’t be together because… of everything. Because I screwed up. Because I was a stupid baby lesbian who had no idea what the hell I was doing.
“We’ll talk inside,” she says. “But I’m not just here because of my cousin. Anybody could have come if this was just about Tylee.”
Tylee.
She’s here about Tylee, then. Not about the fact that we haven’t seen each other in three years and the last time we did, she told me that what we had wasn’t real. She told me to just forget about her, and that she wasn’t even… like me.
Blue hair, septum ring and all, she thought I would believe that for a second.
But I had to let her go. What the hell was I going to do?
Become her worst fear? I don’t understand how she can act like we’re on good terms. Like she didn’t break my heart and send me into a spiral that I wouldn’t have crawled out of if it weren’t for stupid Wyatt Shaw.
“Sure,” I say meekly, which isn’t normal for me at all. “We can talk inside.”
“You seem different,” she says.
And what does she want me to say to that? So do you, Brinley Sinclair. You seem different, and I don’t feel as good about it as I thought I would.
Present Day
Motel Room
(en route to Missouri)
Brinley doesn’t sleep enough. I wake up to her kissing my face like an anxious puppy when I spent all night on and off the phone with various Barbarians, who are truly starting to live up to their name.
Brinley doesn’t care. She just dyed her hair blue yesterday and I like the way it matches her eyes but…
I don’t want to wake up and face another day of chasing down Tylee, especially because today I don’t get to “stay out of it” just because I fed information to Wyatt.
This job needs a female touch, he says. What he really means is that the rest of the Barbarians are scared of having Selma Sinclair shoot at them, because it’s happened before.
2003, when George Bush announced the invasion of Iraq, she tried to shoot her husband in the arm to stop him from re-enlisting. The bikers tell that story so many times, I feel like I was there.
She tried to shoot Isaac when he said that he was marrying Tylee and then tried to shoot him again when he wouldn’t take her back after the first time they broke up – this happened some time after Max was born, but it’s honestly hard for me to keep track of every snippet of gossip spread by these men.
It’s not that they don’t care if she shoots me, it’s that white men are superstitious in a somewhat stupid way and think that some type of “Indian magic” protects me. That’s how uncommon it is for anyone in their world to have common sense – they call it Indian magic.
Brinley kisses the top of my forehead, edging dangerously close to my morning breath. “Wake up, sleepyhead.”
“How do you have this much energy?” I groan.
“Because… You were gone all night and I want to know what my cousin said…”
Her cousins are all assholes. But I hold onto Brinley’s hips and let her kiss me before I slowly open my eyes. A tight knot settles in my chest as she hovers over me with a smile on her face. I always feel so… serious… compared to her.
“Wakey, wakey.”
“Please tell me that you made coffee,” I grunt, sitting up just enough that she can straddle me and I’m not being the biggest asshole ever.
She is pretty. Her eyes match that crazy shade of blue she insists on and…
maybe I need to be around someone a little sunny.
The summer I thought of Wyatt as my best friend might have been one of my low points.
“I did. But just so you know, it’s an addiction.”
“I hadn’t heard.”
I have too many addictions to keep track of.
And I’ll need all of them if we’re supposed to invade Selma Sinclair’s private property in Missouri.
Brinley kisses me on the lips, totally ignoring my morning breath.
I try not to act too uptight and grossed out.
She’s soft. And loving. And… I haven’t felt anything like this in a while.
Before this can get too distracting, I hold onto her boobs and use them to gently guide her off me.
“We don’t have time for anything except coffee and a cigarette,” I groan. “Your cousin gave me marching orders.”
“I regret feeding you information,” she says. “It’s like… We have to work non-stop.”
Yes, Brinley. Most of us have had to work our entire lives.
I let the prickle of frustration subside.
It’s not her fault that she was born relatively rich, the daughter of a gangster who would never let his daughter experience anything but softness.
Every hard thing in Brinley’s life has come because she actively sought rebellion.
I can’t say the same.
“You don’t have to come,” I tell her. “This could be goodbye again.”
Brinley rolls her eyes at me. She enjoys the parts of this road trip that are one big adventure, but anything that feels like work makes her fussy. I would find it cute if my ass weren’t on the line – not to mention Max, Kyler, and Aimee, Isaac’s kids.
“I’ll get us some coffee,” she says.
“Don’t be long.”
Brinley rolls her eyes again. My heart flutters.
She comes back with fresh coffee that smells much better than the garbage downstairs.
I don’t know how she put this together, but I don’t question it.
The creamer smells like eggnog, my guilty pleasure flavor.
Yum. I smile at the coffee and Brinley scoffs.
“You don’t smile at me like that.”
“I love you. I don’t have to smile at you.”
“Wow. So romantic.”
I take a sip of coffee. Romance has never been my strength.
And with Brinley… She ran away before. She’s the one who left.
I might have pushed her away but I’m still scared that she could do it again.
Not every second chance works out, you know.
And name literally one love story where a pair of lesbians get a happy ending.
It’s not that I’m not romantic – I’m realistic.
“Trust me,” I tell her. “Please.”
I try to sound contrite so this doesn’t somehow end with Brinley crying and me apologizing for being such a bitch.
“I would complain a lot less if you would trust me and just tell me where we’re going exactly,” Brinley says, forcing me to scoot so she can sit next to me on the bed.
It’s like she would wear my skin if she could.
Except when she ran… Her head rests on my shoulder and although I feel the slight twinge of manipulation, I can’t help but enjoy her closeness.
“I can’t.”
Business still comes first.
Eventually, I peel Brinley off of me and get ready for us to dive headfirst into problems with Selma Sinclair. It will be worth it in the end, I hope, to make sure the kids are safe. I don’t know what will happen with me and Brinley after that but for now… I need her.