Chapter 13 #2
“They’re like velvet though. They’re so dark they’re almost black.
I like them.” She swallows nervously. “I think you’re very good looking.
I got very lucky. I know that you obviously like bikes and that you love your dog and that you’re good with your hands because…
” she falters and blushes and my cock throbs thinking about what exactly I’d just done with my hands.
Clearly, she is too. “Well… Um… I mean your house. It’s all renovated. Did you do the work yourself?”
“I did.”
“I like what you picked out. It’s all very nice. Do you do other carpentry?”
I think about telling her that I paint, as in paintings, not walls, but then I dismiss it.
No one knows that. It’s something I started after I got home from rehab.
An outlet for all the shit going on in my head and warring in my chest. The loft of the house is my sacred space, and I’m not ready to divulge it yet.
Besides, it sounds fucking pussy, to say that I paint.
“I work on my bike.”
“And with other motors and stuff?”
“Sometimes the other guys’ bikes if they can’t figure out what the problem is. Never cars or anything. I don’t like cages. They’re too confining.”
“What do you do when it’s raining and you can’t ride your bike? How do you get around then?”
I chuckle softly. “I ride anyway.”
“But…”
“Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to enjoy bikes, understand the lifestyle, or ride with me, though if you want to do any of that, that’s great.
If not, that’s fine too. I’ll look into helping you find a car or whatever you need.
You’re not my prisoner and you shouldn’t have to rely on me for rides. ”
“I…” Leena starts walking again when Abby is done with the lawn and tugs her along.
“I don’t have much money saved. My father never made me pay him rent for living there even after school was done.
I waitressed in high school and full time this year, even though my father made me quit a week ago, so I have some money saved from that, I wanted to save it for school.
I’m good with walking or taking the bus, if there is one here.
I don’t have anywhere to go really, anyway. ”
“You’re not taking the bus,” I mutter. “Don’t worry about the car.
I’ll get it for you. Don’t worry about money either.
The club provides us with jobs and pays us accordingly.
Steel is more than fair. I’m not rich, but I learned a long time ago that money generally means fuck all anyway. I never needed much.”
“I don’t either,” Leena assures me quickly, her eyes wide. “Your house is beautiful. My father owned a huge one and it was always very cold. Please don’t think you have to provide for me. I’ll get a job.”
“Fuck that shit. This is all new to us. Both of us. You’re enrolled in your classes already? In Jacksonville?”
For some reason the thought of Leena driving an hour to school every single day and an hour back raises the hair on the back of my neck. I don’t want her on the road, exhausted. Up early and home late.
I don’t know what the fuck I want. A few days ago, I didn’t want her in my life at all. How can I have such primitive thoughts about her not being beside me now, after just one day?
She nods, but her face is turned forward, so I can’t read her expression.
“I am. It’s online though, for the most part.
I didn’t see the point of spending all this time at some college when I could be spending that time working to pay for it.
I think classrooms are boring anyway. I had enough of that in high school. ”
I have to smile. “I couldn’t agree more.”
I don’t tell her that I never finished high school.
That I don’t even have a GED. I could get one, but I haven’t needed it so far.
Doing what I do, which is mostly monitoring our grow-ops and liaising with the people doing the growing, and sometimes the distributors here and there, I don’t exactly need that kind of skill set.
“Did you grow up in Jacksonville?” Leena asks, changing the subject on me so fast that I’m caught off guard.
All the shit that I’ve been trying to hold back comes to the surface like a deluge, flooding me with memories, an avalanche that buries me alive.
My mother passed out on a grimy floral couch, a needle stuck in her arm, her skin a sickly ashen gray, her eyes open and unseeing, a line of drool leaking from the corners of lips that used to be pretty when she smiled.
The bastard that she called her boyfriend, his breath reeking like whiskey, sneaking into my room at night.
Watching me, commanding me, a lecherous grin on his pockmarked, florid flushed face.
His black, soulless eyes shining with sick, perverted delight.
His meaty tongue wetting his puffy, disgusting lips.
My mom begging me, in husky desperation, tears ringing her dark irises, when she couldn’t find a viable vein to shoot herself up, to inject her in spots she couldn’t reach.
That same pig boyfriend, a fat disgusting man with a paunch that hung over his pants, permanent sweat stains on his ill-fitting t-shirts and putrid breath, taking his belt to me later, as a teenager, hitting me with the leather, raising bloody welts along my flesh until he decided it wasn’t enough and turned the buckle against me too.
The gleam of sadistic delight in his bulging eyes, too small in his jowly, sagging face.
Something soft and warm grazes my hand and I nearly snarl as I’m slammed back into myself. Me. The present.
I realize that I’m standing in the middle of the sidewalk, feet planted, poised in readiness, panting like an animal, an enraged bull seeing red, ready to attack.
I blink, and as the black clears off my vision, Leena’s face swims into view.
Her normally clear, sparkling eyes are darker, so that the brown comes through more than the green or yellow flecks, shadowed by her concern.
I realize that I’m standing over her, threatening, dwarfing her with my size.
She’s not afraid of me though. There isn’t a trace of terror on her face. Just anguish.
“Wraith?” Her warm little hand tightens on my wrist.
That flesh to flesh contact grounds me like a set of ties holding me down as gale force winds threaten to sweep me back into a past I barely survived.
“Wraith, are you okay? I’m so sorry. I- I have this habit of being too nosy. Everyone always said so. My father said I didn’t have any sense. My brothers said I never knew when to shut up. I didn’t mean to-”
I pull my hand from hers, but set it gently at the small of her back. “It’s fine.”
Her body heat burns through her t-shirt, and I can’t help but feel it spreading through my veins. She’s like an anchor, calming me, saving me from a storm of tossing waves and a churning sea.
Up ahead, Abby turns to look back at me like she can sense my turmoil.
“I’m sorry,” Leena repeats, her eyes swimming.
My chest clenches up and I nod at her quickly. I take the leash from her and steer Abby around. “It’s fine,” I assure her, even though it’s clearly not, I don’t want to see those tears spill over.
Last time I checked, I definitely wasn’t worth crying over. I realize how tender hearted Leena is and it tugs at something deeply rooted inside my soul, buried, but there, trying to sprout after years of darkness and neglect.
“We’ll take Abby home and then I’ll take you over to Wing’s.”
Distracted with the promise of seeing her sister and the reason behind the visit, a new light of determination in her eyes, eyes that are still flooded with moisture, but shimmering with the strength of a warrior, Leena squares her shoulders and graces me with a genuine smile that I don’t deserve.
God, I want to, though. Be worthy of it.
I thought that The Riders were the only good thing that had ever happened to me and ever would.
I’m pretty sure I was wrong, and I have no idea what to do with that.