Chapter 49
Sailor stood next to Waverly at the funeral but refused to look at the grave.
I stared at the bare winter trees. In a couple of months, the flowers would be in full bloom. Leaves would be green. Birds would be flirting and building their nests.
Life would change again with the seasons.
I placed a hand on my stomach.
Tears flowed like rivers, streaming down the cheeks of the Old Ladies. How many losses had this club, this family, sustained? Quite a few, judging by the fresh headstones of the plots next to Acid’s grave.
The Jackson siblings, along with Cozy and Jazz, had come to pay their respects. Loss brought people together in a way that not even celebrations did. I hadn’t had enough merriments. I was only twenty years old, and my short life had been filled with so many deaths, so much darkness.
But I had something now I’d never had before; a family to lean on. A family that had showed up in my hour of need. A family that had been created by bond, not blood.
When the service was over, the Old Ladies gathered their children and ushered them to cars. Several of the brothers went with them, but Colt and Zip stayed behind to speak to the reverend.
Savage squeezed my hand as Roman approached us.
“Sorry for your loss, brother,” Roman said to Savage.
Savage inclined his head but said nothing.
Roman’s gaze slid to mine. “Evie, can I—we—talk to you?” He gestured to the crew that had come with him. They were standing by a cluster of trees. A gust of wind blew through the cemetery, and I shivered in my coat.
“Sure.” I looked at Savage.
“I’ll be here,” he assured me.
I followed Roman, my insides quaking.
But it was for nothing, because the moment I was within reach, I was suddenly engulfed in a collective embrace. I hadn’t shed any tears during the funeral, but I cried at their touch.
“Okay, let’s give her some room,” Brielle said, stepping back and wiping her own eyes.
“You know everything,” I stated.
“We do,” Roman said with a tight nod. “When you didn’t show up for work, I called Savage. Duke answered his phone because Savage was in the hospital.”
“Oh,” I murmured.
“And when he told us what happened to you, I told him I wanted to know the minute they found you,” Roman said.
“And then Roman told us the truth about how you and Savage met,” Virgil added.
Cozy took my hand. “It must’ve been terrifying for you.”
I squeezed her fingers. “It was. I’m not—Colt said I’m not supposed to talk about it ever again. But I—thank you. For being worried for me.”
“Just glad you’re back safe and sound,” Homer said gruffly.
I looked up at him and said, “Not such a secret teddy bear anymore, are you?”
He grunted, causing us all to chuckle softly.
It felt sacrilegious to laugh in a cemetery, but that was life for you.
“I think it goes without saying but take as much time as you need. Don’t worry about your job. It will be here if or when you’re ready to come back,” Roman said.
My heart filled with love for these people.
“Are you coming to the clubhouse? We’re having a—I don’t know what you call it. Wake? Anyway, there will be food and drinks,” I said.
Jazz shook her head. “No. We’re not really invited. We’re not part of the club.”
“You’re part of my club,” I said softly.
“And that will never change,” Brielle said. “But we don’t belong there.”
“So we’ll see you later?” Virgil asked.
“Later,” I agreed with a nod.
“Family dinner still needs to happen,” Brielle said.
“I can only imagine what your parents will think of me.”
“They’ll love you. Just like we do,” Roman said.
My heart melted.
“Cuddle Bug misses you,” Jazz said with a rueful smile. “So if you need to borrow her for some cheer-up time, you let us know.”
“Or we can buy you a puppy,” Virgil said. “Puppies make everything better. That’s what Clementine says anyway.”
I chuckled.
“Don’t cave,” Cozy said to him. “Otherwise, you and Riley will be sharing the bed with a dog.”
“Yeah, one dog in the bed is enough. Riley doesn’t need another when she sleeps next to you,” Brielle said to her brother.
The teasing and joking lightened my spirits. All I wanted to do was stand with them for a while. To forget about the horrors of the world. To forget that we’d just buried a man who’d barely had a chance to live.
To forget the guilt that threatened to consume me.
Savage was standing in front of two graves, his back to me as I approached. I came to his side and took his hand. His warm fingers wrapped around mine.
I read the names on the stones.
“Lily and Cam’s parents?” I asked.
He nodded. “The night I took a bullet for Duke was the night Gray died.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It feels like it happened both yesterday and years ago at the same time.”
I squeezed his hand in comfort but said nothing. There wasn’t anything to say. He was reliving all his losses, all his mistakes. I saw it on his face.
Reckoning .
Without a word, he turned away from the graves and we walked to the car. We were the only two left; everyone else had already gone to the clubhouse.
My eyes were gritty, and I had a low-grade headache from being awake so long. “I’m really tired.”
“I’ll drive,” he said, opening the passenger side door for me.
Nodding, I climbed in. I sat on my cold hands as he got into the driver’s seat.
“We’ll stay at the clubhouse tonight,” he said. “Everyone else will too. Not just because of the drinking, but Prez is calling Church tomorrow morning.”
“Church?”
“He wanted to give it a day. Before we met and talked about shit.”
I swallowed. “Any idea how it’s going to go?”
“No.” He drove us away from the curb. “But I don’t expect it to be good. Everyone knows what I was involved in. Why we had a funeral.”
“It could’ve been your funeral,” I murmured.
He shook his head. “No. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been in the ring, but I couldn’t stop him. He already made the deal.”
We’d never know the outcome of a hypothetical situation. All I knew was that the guilt we both felt was swallowing everything good.
I put my hand to my belly.
Life grew within me, despite the darkness.
We didn’t speak the rest of the drive to the clubhouse. When we got inside, trays of food had been put out and the liquor bottles were already open.
I’d never been to a traditional funeral or wake. Before my parents had joined the Seed Reapers, I hadn’t known anyone who died. But the way the cult handled death . . .
I shoved the thoughts away, wishing they hadn’t entered my mind.
“Food?” Savage asked.
“Yeah,” I said as I grabbed a plate. He went right for a bottle of bourbon.
“You mind if I go talk to Duke?” he asked.
I shook my head. He left the main room and headed down the hallway.
After I got myself a heaping plate, I took a seat next to Mia on the couch. “Where are the kids?”
“Waverly and Sailor took them down to the theater room,” Mia said. “To watch a movie. Which is probably all Sailor can handle at the moment.”
“Yeah, she looks completely destroyed,” I murmured.
Mia looked at me. “You know about her history with Acid, right?”
“A bit,” I admitted.
Brooklyn picked at her plate. “I don’t know why I got this. I’m not even hungry.”
“Is no one going to talk about the elephant in the room?” Joni asked.
Sutton glared and placed a hand on her belly. “I feel called out.”
Her remark cut the tension and several of the Old Ladies laughed.
I stared at my plate, so I didn’t have to see their prying eyes.
“I mean Evie,” Joni said. “Evie is the elephant.”
“Yeah, I know you meant Evie,” Sutton replied. “We all knew you meant Evie. Even Evie knew you meant Evie.”
“Someone save me,” I muttered.
“It’s awkward to pretend we don’t all know,” Joni carried on. “You don’t ever have to talk about it, but you can if you want to.”
“Colt said I wasn’t supposed to talk about it.”
“Yeah, to outsiders,” Mia said. “We’re not outsiders.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Ever,” I said quietly. “I just want to try and put it behind me. So please don’t look at me like I’m about to go mental. Or look at me with pity.”
“Never pity,” Doc said as she held up a scarred hand I’d never asked about.
“I saw my husband’s grave today,” Rach said quietly. “It hurt a little less than I thought it would. Sometimes you can’t breathe. Other times . . .”
“We all have trauma,” Logan said.
“Boy, do we fucking ever,” Mia muttered. “We’re going to have to build a room onto the clubhouse just to store it all.”
“I don’t have any trauma,” Tavy said.
“Your boyfriend and father were about to beat each other up.” Logan looked at her best friend. “Because you were sleeping with your father’s biker brother behind his back.”
“You sure there are no daddy issues there,” Sutton asked.
“None,” Tavy said. “Raze was hot and he has a big dick. Of course I fell for him.”
There was a chorus of laughter and even I chimed in. It felt good to laugh. It felt good not to wallow every moment.
“When’s the ceremony?” Brooklyn asked her. “Raze claimed you and made you his Old Lady. There’s got to be a celebration for it.”
“When Dad and Raze can be in the same room as each other without wanting to fight,” Tavy said dryly. “Maybe if you just told Dad you were pregnant, that would shift his focus away from me, ” Tavy blurted out.
The room fell into silence.
“Pregnant?” Doc looked at Logan. “You’re pregnant?”
Logan glared at Tavy. “How the hell did you keep you and Raze a secret for so long? You just run your mouth when it comes to me?”
“We need something to be happy about,” Tavy said. “Babies are happy news.”
Logan’s face softened. “Yeah, they are. But I was hoping I had the chance to tell Smoke before everyone else.”
“Congratulations,” Joni said with a smile. “There must be something in the water.”
“What do you mean?” Logan frowned in confusion.
“I’m pregnant again too,” Joni admitted.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Rach said with a laugh. “Everett’s not even a year old.”
“Yeah. It’s a myth that you can’t get pregnant while breastfeeding.” Joni shook her head and looked at me. “Remember that when the time comes.”
“I’ll remember,” I stated.
Willa had left to change Cooper, but she came back with the baby to her shoulder. She looked around the room. “What did I miss?”
Day turned to night.
I stayed with the Old Ladies, taking turns holding their babies. What was it about holding a baby that just made everything better?
Eventually, I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, so I went into Savage’s room. I was stripping out of the dress when Savage came in. He quickly shut the door and leaned against it.
“You’re beautiful,” he rasped.
His eyes were glassy with exhaustion and booze.
“Will you hold me?” I asked.
Nodding, he took off his leather cut and got down to his boxers. We crawled into bed, skin to skin, breath for breath, and fell asleep.
The next morning, I woke up before him and used the bathroom.
His eyes were open when I returned to the bedroom.
“You slept,” I said.
“So did you. You had a nightmare.”
“Me?”
He nodded.
“I don’t even remember . . .”
“We both have things that haunt us,” he murmured. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and went into the bathroom. “I’ve got Church.”
“Yeah.”
I curled my knees up to my chest and watched him get ready. He looked at the leather cut hanging on the hook, like he wondered if he should put it on. Eventually, he did.
“I’ll find you after.” He leaned over and kissed me quickly, his breath minty.
After he left, I hauled myself up. I threw on one of his hoodies and a pair of my pajama pants that had found their way into Savage’s dresser.
I went out into the living room and kitchen to see if anybody else was awake.
Several of the Old Ladies were sitting on the couch, drinking coffee, nibbling on platters of yesterday’s food. No one had seemed inclined to cook.
“Hey,” I said. “You mind if I join you?”
Joni smiled at me. “You never have to ask.” She patted the seat next to her.
Her baby was asleep against her shoulder, and I looked at him.
It was hard to believe I had two babies inside of me, two lives that were entrusted to my care, but I wasn’t sure I was at all prepared or capable of protecting them. I couldn’t even protect myself.
“I can’t believe they’re having Church,” Brooklyn said. “Slash was drunk as a skunk when he came to bed. He has a wicked hangover this morning.”
“Boxer too,” Doc said.
“Most of them were drunk last night, I imagine,” I said.
“Not Colt. He didn’t even come to bed,” Mia said, biting her lip.
The group fell silent until I finally asked, “Does it get any easier?”
“Does what get any easier?” Allison asked. Her toddler was using her knees as support, his chubby hands hanging on.
“Being an Old Lady. Being part of the club . . . being part of a family that has no secrets,” I said finally.
“It’s a blessing and a curse.” Mia smiled. “Sometimes it’s nice because everybody already knows what happened, so you don’t have to rehash it. Other times, you just want a moment of peace to think before you have to know how you feel and wind up talking to people about it.”
I still didn’t know how I felt about anything. It was a whirlwind of loss. The dominoes kept falling.
Sailor and Waverly came up from the theater room to grab some food before heading back down.
Everyone was awake when the brothers came into the clubhouse from having Church.
I felt the mood in the room shift.
Savage met my eyes, and without a word, I got up and went to him.
He wasn’t wearing his leather cut.
Savage grabbed my hand and led me out front. The chill from the air bathed my cheeks and I crossed my arms over my chest.
He closed the door behind us, to give us some measure of privacy.
“What happened? What did Colt say?” I prodded when he remained quiet.
“He said he was too angry to make a final decision about my status as a brother,” Savage replied. “And he said there has to be severe consequences for what I’ve done. He had the right to make the choice for the entire club on his own without their input, but he was too mad to make the call. So, he put it to a vote.”
“A vote,” I repeated.
“I’ve been temporarily suspended,” he said quietly. His eyes slid from mine, and he stared out over the land. “For three months, I’m not allowed in club territory, anywhere on club property, or allowed to do anything except clear my shit out of the clubhouse. At the end of the sentence, Prez will decide whether or not I can come back.”
In three months, I would be well into my second trimester. At the end of three months, it would be summer. In three months, our whole lives could look completely different.
“You’re not included in that,” Savage went on. “You’re welcome at club events, the clubhouse, anything to do with the Old Ladies.”
“Absolutely not,” I stated.
Savage blinked at me, and then his brow furrowed. “What do you mean? You’re welcome here. You’re welcome to spend time with the Old Ladies. Your life doesn’t have to change just because I’m?—”
“I’m not going to be part of this club while you’re not,” I said. “I won’t build a life without you, Savage. Your life and my life are tied together. I chose you . I chose you long before I knew what being an Old Lady meant. Well, now I’m going to prove it to you.”
“I’m not allowed to wear my cut for three months either.” He looked like he’d swallowed glass.
His hands clenched. He wanted to do something. Hit or fight back somehow. But that’s why he was in this position in the first place. Fighting when he shouldn’t have been—a brother dying because of him.
“I understand,” Savage said. “I understand why it had to be this way . . . but it’s going to tear me apart.”
“So what do we do?” I asked. “What happens now?”
“Will you go away with me? I can’t stay in town. I can’t be here while my life hangs in the balance . . .”
“Where will we go?”
“I don’t know. I need time away, and so do you. We both need time to heal.”
Would three months be enough time for that?
I didn’t ask.
How did you ask a question when you weren’t sure you wanted to hear the answer?