CHAPTER 3 #2
Some memories, like this one, make me so sick it’s all I can do not to lose the contents of my stomach.
The tattoos I know well. One old-fashioned arrow, a dream catcher under the head, with feathers, and cursive script below. The bird matches mine; it’s pink, and mine’s black.
The garbage bag, though… without a double check in my journal, I don’t know if it’s a new feather or a lost detail I’ve recovered.
These rapid flashes are a short glimpse into the past. They rarely make any sense. I call them feathers because they’re feathers to follow like puzzle pieces or breadcrumbs, each leading me further down the trail my little bird left behind.
But why these? Why now?
After the Humvee incident, followed by surgery, it’d taken months before the doctor deemed me healthy enough to get discharged from the VA hospital.
Rehabilitation followed. When I returned to my life in New Mexico, nothing seemed right.
I knew I was missing memories, but how many had taken some time to determine.
I discovered I’d sold my home and relocated to a leased apartment on the other side of town.
The apartment I tracked through cashed checks.
When I got there, it was trashed, as if it’d been searched, and the utter lack of girlish belongings sent me reeling.
Most likely, she’d taken off to avoid the evil son of a bitch in this exact memory. Veno was still hounding me about her whereabouts, still looking to get payback for whatever she’d done, so this, at least, gave me hope that she’d made it out of New Mexico alive.
She’s a ghost, and one I’ve been searching for since.
Distantly, I hear the woman ask if I’m okay. Bodie assures her I am and to just give me a moment.
When the pain dissipates, my gaze returns to the too-sexy, angelic face and those striking eyes.
Fierce kitten eyes. At first glance, they seem bright and clear, but as I look a bit deeper, they show a wariness, an edge of uncertainty, and maybe even a speck of vulnerability.
I can’t help but ask myself, are they “ love me” eyes?
I think so. They’re the same color as a forget-me-not, but I’ve jumped to conclusions before, and it’s bitten me in the ass.
Could this be my little bird ? I’m scared to hope when it’s only ever made me look fucking mad. And I hate that I’m handicapped by my inability to remember.
But I have fuck all to go off to find her. And I’m starting to lose the plot. Not only do the flashbacks make my migraines worse, but the aftermath drains me. And that makes me irritable and incapable of suffering through my worst days without needing something to take the edge off.
I hear Bodie ask, “You got a name?”
“Lily.”
Lily. Just as beautiful, but not the name I’m aching to hear.
“I’m Reese Rivers. Everybody calls me Bodie, and this is Finn. He goes by Goose.” He bobs his chin in my direction.
She reaches out very businesslike and offers her slim hand to him first and then to me. It catches me off guard initially, but I finally extend my own and shake hers. I note how her hand is half the size of mine, her skin like satin and warm to the touch.
“Have we ah… maybe met before?” I ask. There is a palpable energy as we clasp hands. It builds the longer we hold.
Out of my peripheral vision, I see Bodie palm his face and shake his head. His blond waves bounce with the motion.
Yeah, fuck him. If there’s a slight chance it’s her, I’m gonna ask. You’d think, with as long as we’ve been friends, he’d have gotten over his second-hand embarrassment issues, but no. He tries to hide my disability, shield me from the fallout, or at least other people’s reaction to it.
Me? I don’t have time, nor the patience, for shitty people. So I don’t give a fuck.
Lily’s eyes hold my gaze for an exceptionally long time. She very slowly shakes her head, then looks away. “No, uh, not that I know of. I think I’d remember something like that.” Nothing in her body language belies her words, so I take them at face value. It’s another letdown, but it is what it is.
Bodie gestures to me. “I keep telling him he needs some new lines, but he refuses to listen. He thinks he has to go old school so chicks’ll think he’s as old as the hair makes him look.”
“Oh yeah?” Lily laughs.
Fuck you, Rivers. I glare at him. He makes a face back at me like he’s ten goddamn years old.
Another aspect of our friendship. He’s doing his thing.
The thing he does where he thinks he needs to speak for me.
Most women assume it’s because I’m shy or some shit.
This couldn’t be further from the truth.
I talk when I need to. I say what I need to.
I speak to those important to me. My circle is small and filled with the people I trust. Which is the way I like it.
My deadpan glare tells him he’ll pay for this shit later.
When my attention moves back to Lily, I find that she’s checking me out. My tattoos. A steady heat spreads through my chest. I try to tamp it down, even though I secretly like how she’s eyeing me. Like I’m a mystery she’s trying to solve.
Ironic, since I feel the same about her.
“I can come back another day, that is… if you’re still hiring.”
“Oh, he’s definitely hiring. And if he wasn’t, I would be. Hell, girl, I’d open up another club just so you could grace the stage.”
She laughs. It’s airy and bright, as if it carries a touch of sunlight. Her eyes travel appreciatively over Bodie. A desire to kick him the fuck out of my club hits me out of nowhere.
He motions for me to respond to Lily. “Tell her.” And shoots me a look that says, Man the fuck up. Talk. To. The. Beautiful. Woman.
Clearing my throat does nothing to diminish the husky tone in my voice. “Could you come back tomorrow?”
A huge grin stretches across her sinfully luscious mouth. “Sure. When?”
Oh shit, that’s a full smile. It’s fucking devastating. Like heart-attack inducing. I nearly say noon and decide against it. I don’t want to appear eager as fuck.
“Would two p.m. work?”
She gets to her feet and fuuuck . Her legs are damn sexy, tanned, toned, and the sight I’m getting of her thighs due to her skirt having ridden up sends a surge of heat south. My dick’s feeling confined as fuck now. The seam of my briefs is probably imprinted on the fucker.
“Great. I’ll come then.”
Bodie chokes on his spit and has to pound his chest.
What the fuck did she just say?
When Bodie recovers, he rasps, “Is that a promise, sweetheart? Because I gotta say, I’m down for that.” He grins like a mad bastard, throwing his dimples into the mix.
Her smile falters. A flush creeps up her chest, contrasting against her blue blouse. Do my eyes stay on the swell of her cleavage longer than appropriate? Yes, they do. Can’t be helped, because Jesus Christ, her body is insane.
“Oh, Jeez.” She chuckles. “I mean… I’ll see you tomorrow at two.”
“Looking forward to it,” Bodie says. “Don’t want to miss the sight of you shakin’ that ass.
” He leans back a bit for a better look.
She grins and turns, giving him a better view and a saucy grin.
Her ass is high, tight, and plump as hell, uncommon on such a thin frame.
It’s like every inch of her was made with a man’s pleasure in mind. Every. Single. Fucking. Inch.
It makes a man imagine all sorts of dirty, sweat-filled, raw, and animalistic sex. Which is what fills my head as I stare up at her.
When she gives us one last sexy smile over her shoulder, Bodie flashes her his own killer grin. “You sure you want to work here, sweetheart? Say the word and I’ll open up an extra receptionist position at my auto body shop just for you.”
His offer, his blatant lust, and lecherous grin, have something rearing up inside me that I’ve never felt before, and it fucking tugs at my baser instincts, bringing them forward.
I can’t stand the thought of her being just another one of his used and discarded toys. One look, and I know she’s worth a whole hell of a lot more than that.
She doesn’t deign to reply to that comment, as she already gets that he’s full of shit and a jokester at heart. Instead, she tells him, “Put in a good word for me, will ya?”
“You got it.”
She gives us both a slight wave. “See ya tomorrow.” Then she’s sauntering off backstage. And yeah, the enthralling swing of her hips is a sight neither of us looks away from.
The second she’s out of sight, I curse under my breath and rub a hand over my mouth.
“She just jacked up your blood pressure, didn’t she?” Bodie laughs.
Fuck yeah, she did.
Bodie’s eyes stay on me for a moment, probably to make sure I’m solid, then he checks back in with the girl. The one lying on the floor that I’ve practically forgotten about.
I mentally scroll through my journals, cataloguing everything I know about Elle. It wouldn’t hurt to double-check some details.
Bodie shakes his head. “Don’t even go there. I see that look.”
Bodie, Dozer, and Cap—our president—are the only people who know about Elle, and why I’m not able to remember.
Bodie, because he was there before, when she was my world, and after, when I had no fucking clue she existed.
He’d never met her, but I’d talked about her on that last tour.
Dozer, because one night over a bottle of Jack, we were commiserating over the women we’d lost while overseas.
And I told Cap when I prospected into the club, so he knew my weaknesses and the drawbacks.
“You gonna tell me if that girl isn’t her, you’re not interested?”
“I didn’t say that,” I grumble. I’m interested, but do I really have anything to offer a girl like that? And what about Elle?
“That’s what I thought.” He sighs. “Look, man, I get it. Elle was pretty amazing. But there are a ton of other fish in the sea. If you haven’t noticed, they keep swimming around you like sharks waiting for a piece. Pretty fish. Fun fish. Exotic fish. Slippery-when-wet fish. Fish that will let you—”
My head begins to pound again. “I swear to God, you should come with a warning label and a gag.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, though it does little to relieve the ache building there.
“You should hitch a ride with this chick to the hospital. Have Alister check you out.”
I’ve been checked out by Alister many, many times. “Nah, I’m good.”
“They seem worse.”
They are, but I didn’t know it was obvious.
“You takin’ the meds he gives you?”
The drugs. “Which ones? The ones that make me nauseous, the ones that turn me into a walking zombie, or the ones that make me a temperamental asshole like Rick the Dick? Or how about the ones that cause me to sleepwalk?” Barrels of fun when you wake up in the dead of the night, standing in the middle of your yard in nothing but your briefs—pills which also have the side effect of making me sleep so deep that I don’t dream, and if I do, I don’t remember shit upon waking.
And I can’t afford not to dream. I need my dreams to find her. They’re windows into the past.
Either way, it’s a no-win situation, and I’m sick of trying shit that doesn’t work. So, I ignore his question and stand up.
“Brother…”
“I’ve got it under control.”
No more drugs. No more surgeries. I’m done with trying shit that only fucks me up more.
He mutters, “By that, you mean you’ll ignore them until they fuckin’ kill you.
Good plan, man. Let me know how that fuckin’ works out for you.
” He holds up a hand. “Oh wait, I forgot, you won’t be able to, because when your fuckin’ brain explodes, you’ll be lyin’ in a pine box.
Genius. Why the fuck didn’t I think of it?
” He glares up at me, and the righteous anger is so unlike him that I pause in my retort.
Looking down at the girl, he mutters, “I’ll make sure they put ‘Died because my stupid ass wouldn’t listen to the doctor’ on your headstone.”
“You should really go see a doctor if they’re that bad,” the girl chimes in. “My aunt had headaches like that, and she ended up having a tumor.”
Great! Just fucking great.
Uncomfortable with a stranger calling me out on my shit, I thread my hands through my hair, pushing it away from my face. “I’m fine. He’s exaggerating. It’s what he does.”
Bodie glares so hard his dimples invert. He opens his big mouth again, but light spills into the room, distracting him. Raven guides the EMTs inside. They stabilize and load the girl into the ambulance.
I hop on my bike to follow them, make sure she gets checked out, and give the hospital my info for the bill.
I don’t see Alister, the club-designated doctor on call for our drama. I don’t need to. I’m already certain no doctor can fix what’s broken inside my head.