VANDAL
Idebate going home, but as I sit at the intersection where I have to go left to my house or right to my club, I can’t make the call.
I haven’t been home since the accident. My mom’s been over to water the plants she insisted I needed. Havoc has been there to pick up shit for me. Clean clothes I was missing. Bills that need paying.
But I’ve stayed away. I’m struggling to be anywhere where I need to be alone for any period of time.
The feeling redoubles when I look over my shoulder in the direction of Daisy’s apartment and wonder if I should just head back there.
Or maybe the best step forward I can take tonight is to turn my tires in the direction of home and head there.
Blood whooshes around my body, and I can hear the sound of it in my ears. My palms sweat so badly, I need to wipe them down my jeans before I take a deep breath and decide I can’t face that stretch of road yet.
So I turn and head back to the clubhouse.
I try to focus on things I’d usually observe on a night like tonight.
That while it’s hotter and more humid than a sauna, the sky is a stunning midnight blue.
The stars look like little pinpricks of light through a dark curtain.
There are no other cars on the road, which is a relief.
Seeing headlights approaching me right now would be enough to send me over the edge.
There’s a certain trickle of relief when I make it back to the clubhouse, and I realize I’m lucky to have two places to call home.
While my room here is currently a stinking mess, I have a comfortable bed, a large shower, and a closet and drawers bursting with more clothes than I need.
And it makes me think about Daisy and her situation.
She looks like she should have a closet full of flowery, colorful shit.
Shoes and bags to match. Instead, there’s fuck all in her fridge.
She’s making do with next to nothing. And I’m not doing anything with everything I already have.
I walk to the clubhouse kitchen and grab a glass from the cupboard before opening the freezer. The vodka bottle is ice cold when I reach for it to crack the lid and pour three fingers into the glass.
It’s halfway down my throat before I really consider whether I needed it. The truth is I would probably have decided yes, I do. But I didn’t hesitate.
“Where the hell did you go?” Havoc asks when he sees me pouring another.
“I went for a ride,” I lie.
Havoc’s stance softens. “I would have come with you.”
I blow out a breath and swallow half the vodka I poured. Its icy coldness burns as it goes down. “I know you would, brother. But I just decided it was something I had to do right then and there, or I would have…”
Run from it.
I know if there hadn’t been Elsie waiting on me to help her, I would have turned around as soon as I saw my bike.
Havoc rounds the table in the kitchen and stops in front of me. “I get it. Was looking forward to riding out with you once you got back into the saddle, like old times’ sake. How was it?”
“Rusty. Was too fucking pissed to be riding really, but it felt like the only way I could get in the saddle.” I down the rest of the vodka, but I swear it starts to curdle in my stomach.
The brotherhood deserves better than me lying to them.
Havoc, especially, deserves better.
I don’t even know why I’m not telling him about Daisy, except now that I’m back in the clubhouse, I don’t feel fixed like I thought I would be.
Everyone is hoping for glimpses of progress. But right now, I’m in no rush to get back on my bike again. They want me to rejoin the fight, and fighting for Daisy and Elsie tonight would make them think I’d somehow miraculously returned.
“Maybe we try again tomorrow when you’ve slept and are sober,” Havoc says hopefully.
“Yeah. Maybe,” I say, knowing full well that tomorrow the answer will be no.
“You wanna hang out? I got a whole bunch of pirated movies from Rainbow on my laptop.”
I shake my head. The itching beneath my skin is getting worse, a sign it won’t be solved with alcohol alone. “Yeah, no. Not tonight. Some other time, yeah?”
Havoc slaps my shoulder. “Yeah. No problem. I’ll just go get a glass, and we can sit in here for bit.”
I shake my head at that too. “Just a nightcap. I’m headed to bed. See you tomorrow, yeah?”
Havoc sighs. “Whatever you need, brother.”
But as I leave the kitchen, I see the reflection of him placing his hands on the stainless steel kitchen counter and dropping his head. I’m not so far gone that I don’t see him trying to reach me.
Problem is, I’m not worth reaching.
I return to my room and let myself in. For the first time, I notice the smell. It stinks in here. I can’t be bothered changing the bedding, but I crack the windows wide open even though the air-conditioning has it nicely cooled.
Once I’ve poured some whiskey into my glass from the bottle on the desk, I reach into my drawer for the stash of painkillers. Three of them should be fine for what I need. I wash them down with the amber liquid.
Next, I step into the bathroom, where I brush my teeth until my gums bleed. I don’t remember the last time I did that. Two days ago. Three. There’s blood in the foam when I spit.
Navy towels hang on the wall. Thick and plush. And I think about those hand towel–size sheets hanging on Daisy’s rail. Can’t imagine they fit around Daisy’s body properly given the way her tits looked in that little top with a scoop neck and cherries on it.
So fucking wholesome, it seems wrong to think about tugging the neckline down a little to suck on those pert nipples.
I drop my clothes, turn on the shower, and step beneath it. When my wounds were first healing, I did the minimum required when it came to hygiene. In the hospital, there aren’t many options. In the clubhouse, I… wallowed.
The water feels good as I let it pound down over me. I don’t know why I’ve been avoiding it. The slight buzz of vodka and whiskey and pills takes away the sharp edge of the anxiety.
It feels so good, I wash my hair twice. And for the first time, I properly scrub my scalp.
The first time I washed my hair in a shower post-surgery, I barely let the shampoo touch my scalp before I rinsed it off.
Don’t know what I thought was gonna happen.
Perhaps pull open my stitched wound, re-break skull fractures, and do other kinds of damage.
But there’s no stinging pain, even if things still feel a little bruised and tender.
Once it’s rinsed, I soap it up all over again. Then apply conditioner, leaving it to work its magic before pouring a generous amount of soap onto my hands.
Havoc once read this thing about how someone could be touch deprived.
Like, they’ve gone too long without physical human contact.
Back then, we joked about how we could never see that becoming part of our lives.
Havoc says it’s the reason he’s never getting married.
Doesn’t want to end up in one of those sexless marriages after five years.
We joked about having your balls tied up by one person.
But what I’d never considered was how something extreme like I went through would force you to experience both ends of the touch spectrum.
Once Reaper’s friend saw me and the state of my x-rays, I was rushed to the ER, and the tilt and whirl of everyone touching me, poking me with needles, and cutting into me began.
Every step was a violation, even though I consented. I didn’t give permission to be physically destroyed; I didn’t want to be in a position where I had to be put back together again in the first place. But the only way to heal was to let the specialists do what they needed to, to make me better.
And then…nothing. Post surgery, everyone gave me a wide berth, even the club girls. Fuck, even I gave me a wide berth.
I clean my junk, getting in behind my balls. Right up my ass crack. Given the way I’ve smelled recently, I wouldn’t have wanted to go down on me either.
As soon as I think of blow jobs, I think of Daisy on her knees in those goddamn cherry-covered pajamas. She’s tentative, but her hands are on me. And the very thought of that causes my cock to twitch as I wash.
“Don’t do it,” I warn myself, knowing that there is no way on God’s green earth that I’m not gonna palm myself.
My hand tightens around my hardening cock before I can stop it.
“Fuck.” The word comes out rough and low while the hot water beats against my shoulders. My cock jerks in my grip, thickening fast as Daisy fills my head so completely, it’s like she’s right here in this bathroom with me.
The cherry-print pajamas are getting soaked and cling to her taut nipples.
She looks nervous, which stirs something in me.
I don’t want to scare her, and yet…her fear gives all this an extra edge.
It reminds me that becoming who I used to be is still an option, a pathway, even if I can’t see the direction to it yet.
I brace one hand against the tile wall and close my eyes as I stroke my length from root to tip.
This is a terrible idea, because I’m in no place to fixate on a woman I shouldn’t be fixating on. One with a goddamn kid, at that. But my body doesn’t seem to care. I visualize those slender fingers of hers tentatively wrapping around my cock like I’m something precious.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter out loud. Don’t know why I’m waxing poetic about a woman jerking me off.
But I can’t stop. I imagine her looking up at me through those thick lashes while she parts her lips and takes the tip of me inside. Me wrapping my hand over hers to increase the firmness of her grip.
A harsh breath tears out of me. “Jesus Christ.”
My hand’s strokes shift from slow and tentative to the exact pace I need to come quickly. Before remorse gets the better of me and I lose all sensation. Before the whiskey and pills kick in and chase away the first real organic arousal I’ve had since before the accident.
Water beats down on me as I tip my head back beneath the spray.
I squeeze my eyes shut as I suck in air and sprays of water.
“Fuck. Fuck…” It’s right there. I want to come so bad, I can taste it, riding the edge in desperate need of the one thing that will push me over.
Come for me, Vandal.
Shit blurs. Her voice. The image of her on her knees, begging me. And when I do as she asks, I visualize it spilling all over those tits of hers.
I come hard. Wave after wave. For a second, I huff a laugh as this orgasm makes up for lost time.
But it’s so good, it feels like a burst of blue sky through the clouds. It’s so good, I don’t want it to end as I work myself down. My body shakes for a moment while I find my breath.
And for a heartbeat, I feel more like me.