Chapter 48
Vincent da Silva
It took a few days of awkwardness, but by the time the next weekend was rolling around, things were getting back to normal.
Dash and I were almost moving properly without pain, the wounds were scarring over, and the gang was no longer giving us the side eye whenever we were around.
They may still have issues and feel uncomfortable, but everyone was pretty much getting over it.
Sitting at my dining room table, Dash next to me, we were surrounded by Wads, Einstein, Bishop, Tinkerbell, and Johnny.
My elbow on the table, I was massaging my temple, trying to fight off another headache.
They seemed to be hitting every day lately.
Ever since getting out the hospital, I could count on one hand where I went an entire day without the burden.
Tapping my pencil to the notepad, I was zoning out while everyone went through the little baggies, making piles. My mind kept wandering, however, and I found it very difficult to concentrate. Not exactly a stellar start to being the new leader of the Serpents.
“So, when’s Tiny coming back?” Wads asked.
My heart skipped a beat, and a silly grin curled my mouth.
Sitting up with a groan, I tossed the pencil to cross my arms, a leg bouncing under the table.
Casting Wads a glance, I replied, “She’s actually on her way.
They’re driving down here instead of taking the jet because, apparently, the kids don’t wanna leave behind the chickens. ”
“No, shit. They got chickens up there?”
“And goats and horses and cows,” Dash grumbled, licking his finger to count through the bills. “Bitch is gonna cover my yard in chicken shit.”
“Eh, at least she’s coming back. How long they gonna be here?”
“I dunno. Dash has been house hunting online, trying to find a place that might convince them to stay.”
He grinned and shook his head. “For someone you call bitch all the time, you sure do seem to like him.”
He rolled a shoulder and sat up, tapping the stack to make it as neat as possible.
Grabbing the cigarette box, he withdrew two, lit them, and handed me one without thinking about them watching.
It was something we’d both always done for one another, never thinking about it before, why would it be an issue now?
“He ain’t so bad.”
Frowning, he slouched in the chair, hooking the crook of his elbow over the spindle on the back. “And he’s okay with what we did in Kentucky?”
“I mean, no, not really. Would you?”
Wads snorted and lifted his brows. “I’d gut a bitch.”
“Yeah, well, Ty ain’t like that,” I offered, marking off the things on the list. Satisfied with the night’s profits, I began ripping it into tiny pieces, tossing them to the large ashtray.
“Naw, he ain’t got a mean bone in his body.”
“If he did, you broke it that night,” Wads chortled.
My lips pulled between my teeth and I tensed, casting a sideways glance his way. As expected, he didn’t find the joke nearly as funny. Scowling, he lunged to his feet, reaching over the table to point. “Hey, you wanna start something, man? That shit ain’t funny.”
Wads blanched, the smile vanishing. “Holy shit, Dash, I was fucking around.”
“Well don’t, how ‘bout it, huh? We were three grown ass men, and we attacked a fucking kid. We stole his college education and career and crippled him forever. What’s so fucking funny about that?”
His sight darting back and forth between us, he gulped and shook his head. “I-I…N-Nothing, dude, I’m sorry.”
Not caring everyone was watching, I slid my palm against his and gave a gentle squeeze, tugging him back to his seat. “Calm down, babe. You know he didn’t mean nothing. He wasn’t on that mountain, he didn’t get to know Ty like we did.”
“He was a kid, Wads,” he spat but plopped to the chair. “A fucking kid. He didn’t stand a chance against us.”
Einstein coughed and inched closer to the table. “Hey, man, I don’t mean to start nothing, and please don’t get offended, but…you …you ain’t going soft on us, are you?”
Snarling, he seethed, “Ask Janelle that. Or, ask Charlie, since he’s still alive.”
They all exchanged glances at the mention of the man he shot last Friday night. With that came the memory of Sam. I hadn’t even thought to kill him, I just panicked, thinking he was about to expose The Boss’ true identity.
“Hey, so I been meaning to ask y’all. And be truthful, cuz I ain’t gonna shoot no one.”
They bristled and avoided their stares.
“Any of y’all recognize The Boss the other night?”
“No,” they grumbled.
“Look me in the eye and say it.”
I stared at each and every one as they repeated, “no,” and saw no deception.
“Man, I think Sam was just bullshitting, to be honest with you,” Bishop said, collecting bags of heroin to put in a larger one. “He’s always talking shit out his ass, trying to make himself more important than he is.” He stilled, realizing his words. “Was,” he added with a low bob of his head.
“You think anyone else figured it out?”
“How could they, Vin?” Tinkerbell asked, fanning her hands out.
All we saw was a blurry figure with a dark gray background.
Ain’t no way he knew who that was.” She smiled and leaned forward, stretching for the baggies of pills.
Pulling them closer, she followed suit, collecting them to put in a larger bag. “So, when y’all getting married?”
We both went rigid, my heart lurching. Looking his way, his eyes were bulging, the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
I took a drag off mine and tapped the ashes off in the tray. The paper with my notes on tonight’s activities fully shredded, I touched the cherry to the edge of a piece, setting it on fire. “You almost sound happy for us.”
She clucked her teeth and rolled her eyes, carefully zipping the bag and tossing it aside to start another. “It is what it is. I mean, at least now I know it had nothing to do with me every time you rejected me.”
My focus snatched to hers, my eyelids rounded. “And I told you that each and every time.”
“You know how many times I heard the whole, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ spiel? I thought you was just blowing smoke. My bruised ego has been vindicated.”
The guys chuckled which further startled me. Holding my palm out, I said, “Whoa, wait. All y’all seem to be okay about this.”
Wads shrugged, going to the kitchen. Bending over and opening the door beneath the sink, he gathered the bottle of Clorox spray and paper towels, returning to the table. “Like you said the other night, ain’t nothing changed. Y’all still the most solid dudes I know. I dunno, it almost makes sense.”
“Besides, we all already knew about you,” Einstein muttered, also rising from the table.
My stomach bottomed out, horror ripping through my core. My voice cracking, I screeched, “What?”
“Hey, hey,” Bishop urged, twisting his waist to look toward the stairs. “Keep it down, will ya? This ain’t like Tiny and Jackyl’s old place, if that kid comes around the corner, we got no time to hide this shit.”
Lowering my voice, I wheezed, “What the fuck you mean, y’all knew?”
“Well, most of us knew,” Wads chuckled while shooting a wink her way.
“Yeah, why didn’t you say nothing?” she whined.
He shrugged, lifted his ass from the seat to stretch for the money since Dash was still frozen, and dropped back with a grunt to begin counting off. “Wasn’t none of our business. Besides, we figured he didn’t want no one to know.”
“Not only that, but Jackyl woulda lost his damn mind. I mean, anyone else, he probably woulda just made snarky comments and messed with us, but you?” Bishop said, pointing my way. “Hell, naw, ain’t no way he’d let that happen.”
One side of my face scrunched, my head bobbing that way.
“Yeah, the only weird part about this is you,” Einstein said, pointing at Dash. “How the hell does someone as fucking homophobic as you turn gay practically overnight?”
He coughed, finally shedding the haze. Taking a drag, the arm closest me draped over the back of my chair so he could bend closer and tap the cigarette on the ashtray.
Briefly pausing to use the cherry to push pieces of paper into the small flame, he said, “If you knew what that dick could do, you’d spread for him, too. ”
Everyone burst out laughing but I was dumbfounded, my jaw on my chest, my sight slowly roaming over every single face that had been a regular part of my existence for nearly twenty years.
All this time, hiding in fear, worried I’d be ostracized and cast out of the only family I’d ever felt accepted by for nothing.
Years of letting Billy Wagner hide me because I thought he was my only shot, for nothing.
A brow arching, his tone turned almost sinister as he looked at Einstein. “But I fucking dare you to come near mine.”
Another burst of laughter while my insides flipped over at his possessiveness. Holy shit, that was fucking hot.
“No, but seriously. How did that happen?”
He shrugged and took another drag, squinting against the smoke.
“Not too sure, honestly. One night, we was just talking and, I dunno. Had a lot of shit going through my head about Mary disappearing on me,” he said, continuing the ruse for the couple who didn’t know the truth.
“Jackyl was fucking hunting us like animals,” he grumbled, lowering his chin.
“Literally every day out there felt like it was our last.”
The group fell quiet, the mood shifting from light to heavy.
“When you think you’re gonna die, you do crazy shit.”
My insides started to harden and turn numb, not exactly liking that answer. He was just repeating words I’d said to him at one time, but it still awakened that lingering fear planted in my gut, the fear of all my hopes and dreams falling apart.
“But you ain’t in danger no more.”
“Yeah, I know. I dunno, though.” He tipped his head to stare at me, searching my face.
“Once it kinda started, there wasn’t a single voice in my head telling me to stop it.
I mean, there were times I questioned my sanity,” he snickered, turning to look at them again.
His lips pursing, he shook his head. “Nothing telling me to stop. In fact.” He chuckled and took another drag before smashing it out.
Speaking through the smoke, he said, “That little inner voice kept pointing out all the things that just fit between us.”
“Like?” she asked, crossing her forearms on the edge of the table so her hands dangled over her lap.
“Like, how we always got each other’s back, how we been connected at the hip almost since the first day we met.
Just little things here and there and one day, it dawned on me that it was all building up to this moment.
” He looked at me again with a smile, the golden chips in his irises glinting. “No regrets.”
The numbness faded to warmth and my heart swelled with love. Winking, I finished my cigarette, as well, and snubbed it out, using the butt to push the last couple remnants to burn.
“And you?” Bishop asked, gathering all the larger bags to put in the metal box. “What made you finally open your eyes and see what a stud muffin Dash was?”
Another snicker rolled through the group.
“Kinda like what he said. A lot goes through your mind when you think you ain’t gonna live much longer.
I just.” I heaved a sigh and leaned forward, a leg bouncing beneath.
“He makes sense to me. Out of everyone in the world, there’s no one I trust more than him. He’s just perfect.”
“Yeah, he is,” she giggled, sitting back to cross her arms and legs. “The more I see you two together, it definitely makes sense.”
Frowning, I jutted my chin in her direction. “So, no hard feelings?”
She clucked her teeth and flipped a dismissive wrist. “Hell, naw. Besides, even if there was, would I tell you? I don’t even have my ears pierced, I don’t want no extra holes in this body.”
More laughter, the mood lifting again. The fire burning out, I pushed my chair back, stood, and went to the kitchen to wash the ashes down the drain. Making my way back to them, I set the dish in the center of the table, hovered over my chair, and dropped a kiss to Dash’s temple as I sat.
And no one said a goddamn thing. No one even batted a lash. I was still accepted! I was openly gay, in love with another man, and my closest friends didn’t care.
Curious, I decided to test the waters a bit. I combed my fingers through the hair at his temple, leaned into him, and kissed him on the mouth. He smiled and winked, dipping closer for another tiny peck before refocusing on the group.
Nothing!
Holy shit, this was fucking amazing! The threat Jackyl posed had been eliminated, I was now the leader of the Serpents alongside my best friend, we were in love, living together, raising a daughter and planning a future, my sister was coming home, and everyone was accepting my sexuality.
How had this happened? Everything I’d ever dreamed of was coming true.
Life had never been so fucking amazing.