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  A few minutes pass, and I take the first step toward the house. This house reminds me of everything I’ve ever lost. Staring at the wood shingles, I remember my dad leaving—my biological dad—even though I was only a toddler. He got sick of my mom’s shit and split. Can’t say I blame him for wanting to ditch her crazy ass, but he left me, too. Then years after that, she left. Then Butch was taken away. And after everybody was gone and the only person I loved that I had left was Jeremy, we were sent here. And it didn’t matter how nice Jim and Ruby were. Being in their house meant I wasn’t in my own, and it meant my dad really was gone, my mother really was a worthless whore, and my sperm donor was gone—and the latter two didn’t want me anyway. So why should I give a fuck, I’ll never know. And that’s how it is when you’re unwanted—it’s a hole that never leaves you.

  “You’re acting weird,” he says. I try to shake it off and mumble something about Chief. It’s cheap, using his death as an excuse for my behavior, but it’s all I’ve got.

  “You think Ruby’s a good mom?” I ask, because I can’t help myself.

  “Sure,” he says. “Why?”

  “Just… you think things would be better… all this wouldn’t be happening if…” I say, trailing off. I want to ask him if he thinks anybody can be a good mom. His mom is a real piece of work when she’s around, which isn’t all that frequent. My mom’s a loser. Between the two of us we don’t have a single biological parent who’s worth a shit.

  “Shit happens, babe,” he says, closing the discussion down.

  I’m heading for the front door when Duke tugs me to the right and opens the sliding glass door in the hallway. I slip in, grateful that he considered the side door, thus avoiding the living room and kitchen, where most of people congregate. With his hand on my lower back, he leads me down the hallway. The door to the bedroom that was once Ryan’s and is now Alex’s is shut. Duke sandwiches me between himself and the door. Looking back at him to take the lead, he shrugs and turns the knob, and pushes the door open.

  On the bed, against the far wall, perfectly centered in the room, are Alex and Ryan. They’re lying on their sides, facing each other, and Ryan has Alex’s face cupped in his hands. They’re both smiling like lovesick idiots, which makes me want to be sick on the wood floor. Ryan leans in and places a chaste kiss to her lips and says, “I love you.”

  She giggles like crazy and then says it back and pulls him in for a not-so-chaste kiss. Duke told me enough of what Ryan’s done to Alex over the last few months, and while I know better than to repeat what he said, and I can’t openly admonish Ryan for his fucked up behavior, I still imagine kicking him in the balls until he can’t see straight. Fucking asshole.

  Turning my head to the side, I whisper to Duke, “Make it stop.” He laughs then clears his throat loudly. Ryan looks over. His jet black hair is all messed up, and his lips are parted. He recovers quickly and narrows his eyes at me. As far as I’m concerned, this shit is payback for what he did a few weeks back, purposefully leading me in to where Duke and Dawn were fucking. My body tenses, and I fight the urge to elbow Duke in the gut. As long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever get that image of that slut riding his cock out of my head.

  “Ew,” I say, shaking my head. “I thought you were nobody’s girl.” My eyes are on Ryan as he sits up. His body is as tense as mine. Alex huffs from beside him, knowing the comment was directed at her. She looks from me to Duke and back again like she’s checking us out. I lean forward to try to create a less than obvious separation, but it does no good. He’s just so close.

  “Right back at’cha,” she says with a smirk. Her head turns just enough to the right, and my stomach drops. The right side of her face has a few scratches and some minor bruising, but the left side is totally fucked up. The skin around her eye is swollen, and the bruising is a deep purple. Her lip is busted up, and she has no fewer than three large scratches. The skin is bound together by butterfly bandages. My eyes water at the sight.

  “I knew you were hurt, I just didn’t know how hurt,” I whisper and cross the room. Carefully, I crawl onto the bed and cross my legs in front of me. Alex places her hands on either side of her hips and starts pulling herself up when Ryan leans over and gently hooks his arms beneath her underarms and pulls her up into a sitting position. He unhooks his arms and lets his hands skim her ribs and belly softly before he removes them.

  “I’m okay,” she says and looks back at Ryan. She gives his hand a squeeze. “Really, everything’s okay.” She’s smiling and he’s scowling. But his eyes are focused on her so intently. It’s like he thinks if he keeps looking at her, he’s going to see something else that wasn’t there before. It’s just a moment, but it takes my breath away. In all the years I’ve known Ryan, he’s never looked at anything with that kind of depth—not even Ruby—and I think she’s the only person he’s ever really loved. Until now, that is.

  Ryan climbs off the bed and gives Duke a head nod at the doorway.

  “Sixty minutes,” Ryan says, staring at me. I can’t help but to roll my eyes at his bossy nature. Sure, he’s a Grade-A bad-ass and all, but he’s also human and he’s clearly capable of being loving toward a woman who’s not his mother.

  “Gosh, you really do love her, don’t you?” I say. The glares he shoots my way is anything but pleasant.

  “Yeah,” Alex says with a smile on her face. “He really does love me.” Ryan stalks out of the room with Duke following not too far behind.

  “You must have bumped your head awful hard,” I say. I keep my eyes on the purple comforter beneath me and pick away at the balls of fuzz. “I can’t believe you’re with Ryan.” She reaches out and swats my arm. My eyes fly up to her face, more than a little surprised that she actually smacked me.

  “There’s a lot more to him than you see,” she says, jutting her chin out. I don’t know the girl very well, but so far I like what she’s showing me. I glance over at the now empty doorway and wonder if the same can be said about Duke.

  “Yeah, but aren’t you just deluding yourself into only seeing what you want to see?”

  “Nah,” she says. “My mom loves him, so that tells me there’s something worth loving even during those times he’s a bastard.”

  “Ruby loves all of these guys. I wouldn’t trust her judgment,” I say.

  “Did you come here to rag on me about Ryan?” she asks. I shift uncomfortably in place and blow out a heavy breath. I’m taking my shit out on her, and that’s not cool.

  “Sorry, I just—Duke told me about all the shit that’s gone down,” I admit. She’s had the shit beat out of her already. The last thing she needs is my judgmental ass giving her crap.

  “Oh,” is all she says. Her eyes travel around the room before they land on mine. She shrugs and sighs. Embarrassment shows in her features, and now I feel even more uncomfortable. It’s like I can’t say anything that’s not going to upset or embarrass her. Maybe this was a bad idea.

  “I mean, whatever. If you’re happy,” I say.

  “That’s the thing, I’m not exactly happy,” she says. “Everything that’s going on right now makes happy kind of difficult. But Ryan is really good to me, and I do love him. When he lets himself be, he’s funny and kind.”

  “And the rest of the time?” I ask, giving her a sarcastic smile. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

  “Love doesn’t work that way. I don’t get to pick and choose which parts of him I love,” she says. A smile returns to her face, and she slaps her knee. Scrunching her face up in sudden pain, she takes a moment to blow out a strangled breath. When her face refocuses on mine she shakes her head.

  “I swear, I keep finding more bruises,” she says.

  “Your life is so fucked up right now. I don’t even know what I’m allowed to ask about,” I admit. I mean, I want to ask her about her brother, and more about Ryan—God help me—and even about Ian. I know he’s not handling shit well, but the curiosity is going to kill me.

  “You can as
k me anything.”

  “How are you dealing with the mom thing?” I ask. She lets out a short laugh, winces, and then settles back against her pillows that prop her up.

  “I wasn’t at first. There’s nothing like a good old fashioned ass beating to put things in perspective,” she says honestly. “My adoptive mom died a long time ago, and I feel really guilty about this, but I’m kind of angry at her. She did everything my father ever wanted her to—apparently including raising his mistress’ kids—and she wanted me to be like that, too. It’s like I’m betraying her, but I’m really happy to be getting to know Ruby as my mom.”

  “She’s pretty awesome,” I say. Alex’s head tilts to the side.

  “I thought you didn’t like my mom.”

  “It’s not that. Everything is complicated,” I say. After what Duke told me, I’m feeling more sympathetic to Ruby’s plight. She’s been mom to so many of us rejects. She deserves better than I’ve given her in recent years.

  “Doesn’t seem complicated to me. Duke likes you and you like him. And I like you, and he’s growing on me. I think you guys could be good together,” she says.

  “What is this, the biker love connection?” I say in a snarky tone. “But really, I can’t talk about the thing with me and Duke.”

  “Can’t or won’t? I’m stuck in this house, and that means my primary source of information is Ryan. The only updates he wants to give me are ones that involve nudity. What he’s told me is a total mess.”

  “What have you heard?” I ask, leaning in. I may not have many friends, but I know better than to pass up the chance to get a little dirt on what the club thinks is happening with me and Duke. Quite frankly, it might help me sort out my own head. I’m so into finding out what Alex has to say that I barely hear the heavy boots on the hardwood floor as they near the bedroom.

  “You ladies talking about me?” Duke appears in the doorway, making me jump halfway to the ceiling. A smirk appears on his face as he nods at me.

  Alex purses her lips and smiles big at Duke. She says, “Word on the street is you’re wifed-up.”

  Duke nods and grins, saying, “I got me an Old Lady, and you got yourself a prick.” Alex scowls at his comment, but Duke just looks to me with an apologetic smile on his face, saying, “Sorry, babe. We gotta go.”

  My face heats, and I scramble off the bed. Despite having enjoyed my time with Alex, my brain isn’t in the best place to gossip about relationships right now.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” I turn to Alex and say.

  “Visit me?” she asks. Begrudgingly, I nod and allow Duke to lead me out of the room. Maybe my next visit I’ll even say hi to Ruby and Jim.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket and when I check to see why, there’s a new text waiting for me from Darren. WHERE ARE YOU, it reads. I send a quick text back saying HAVE 2 CANCEL. GONNA LET CLUB TK CARE OF DAD. BUT THNX.

  Chapter 20

  Duke climbs onto his bike and I follow. From the front door, Ryan and Jim storm out and head for their bikes. We get comfortable, affix our helmets to our heads, and Duke starts her up. I wrap my arms around Duke’s waist and hold on tight as he peels off down the driveway and then onto Sherwood Road. I wait until we make it to the clubhouse and I’m climbing off the bike to ask why we left early.

  “Club vote about Chief. Sorry, baby,” he says. I nod and take a deep breath before removing my helmet.

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  “Like it when you ask questions,” he says. He’s smiling so wide that I think his cheeks have got to be hurting, and his eyes have a slight twinkle to them. He looks happy. He climbs off the bike and wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me into him. And as we stand here, in the Forsaken clubhouse’s parking lot, I feel happy. If even for a moment, this feels good and right. And I want to believe beyond all doubts that I won’t lose this. I know Duke wants me, but would he want us?

  Things are going so well between us. Just looking at his face with that big, stupid grin, I think there’s hope for us yet. We do a lot of eating and some cooking—on his part, not mine—and there’s some TV watching. There’s even a lot of fighting over the sink in the morning to brush our teeth, and there’s wall sex, and even kitchen sex. That’s what we mostly do. We bitch at each other and then have sex. We fight and then we have sex. Duke eats and then we have sex. There’s even a good bit of crawling into bed together, there’s spooning, and there’s waking up together. Even the mornings he has to wake up before me, there’s morning sex. And the mornings he gets to sleep in, but I have to work, there’s usually shower sex before he crawls back into bed wet and tired to sleep awhile longer. But that’s when he’s home, which he hasn’t been a whole lot of lately. And we’re good and solid. No spinning. This could work. It could.

  “We should talk,” I say, because if I don’t talk to him about this I’m going to burst. I’m trying so hard to stay normal and keep a level head, but it’s almost impossible. I refuse to let myself feel excited over this, especially because I have no idea why I’d be excited over this—it was unplanned and we’re so unprepared. I might never be prepared.

  “Can’t,” he says. “Nothing good comes from those words. Only bad shit happens when a chick wants to talk, and I got club shit to deal with. I got mob shit to deal with. I got your difficult ass to deal with. I got your fucking brother to deal with—kind of hate that kid, babe—and I can’t deal with anything else. So no, we do not got to talk.”

  “You’re swamped, I get it. But we still need to talk,” I hiss. It’s bad timing, and I get that. But I’d rather tell him before he figures it out on his own, and I don’t even know how long I have until that happens.

  “We ain’t talkin’,” he says.

  “You’ll fuck me, just not talk to me,” I snap. I’m being argumentative and I know it. Begging for him to listen to me about something I’d rather not have to talk to him about anyway is setting me off. Everything is always on his terms, never on mine. And the times I think it’s on my terms are only because he doesn’t give a crap about it and therefore lets it be on my terms.

  “Time to shut your mouth, Nicole,” he grits out and folds his arms over his chest as he eyes his brothers, who are pulling up on their bikes. I roll my eyes and shake my head.

  “I don’t know who you think you are, telling me when I need to shut my mouth,” I yell back and turn to walk into the clubhouse for some peace and quiet in his room while he takes care of his business. I barely make it two feet before he’s grabs my arm and spins me around to face him. His right hand clutches at the back of my neck, and tilts it back, forcing me to face him. His left holds me tight against his muscular frame. He’s such a prick in front of the club. When we’re alone he’s all sweet and kind. But here, he’s a total asshole.

  “You know who I am, baby,” he hisses just inches from my face. His overgrown beard tickles at my neck, and his breath—a mix of orange juice and maple syrup—washes over my face. He’s got a major sweet tooth, which has allowed him and Jeremy to bond over morning pancakes. Despite his assertion that he hates my brother, they’ve been getting closer as the weeks progress.

  Leaning in, he blocks my view of everything that isn’t him. “I’m your man, and you’re my woman. And you need to get this and get it now because I won’t be repeating myself—here at the clubhouse, you’re to be seen and not heard. You need to learn to chill and not be in my face like you like.”

  He releases me with such force I wobble back a step before righting myself again. Beneath the bubbling anger is that ever present pit of sorrow that threatens to engulf me.

  Duke stalks into the clubhouse and slams the door behind him. The sound of metal on metal thrashing together violently makes me jump. I close my eyes and gift myself a moment of silence. All this shit that’s going on with the club and Alex is already weighing on him enough. He doesn’t need my shit, too. The way he held me in place and refused to let me go until he was good and ready shook me up. It was like he was tak
ing possession of me, as though I was nothing more than a silly plaything that refused to work properly.

  I work extra hard to keep my composure as I slink into the brightly-lit clubhouse after Duke. His heavy boots carry him through the main room then down the side hallway and into the chapel. He doesn’t look back or miss a beat as he walks through the open chapel doors and slams them behind him. The Lost Girls, Old Ladies, and family members of the club, who fill the crowded room, collectively stop what they’re doing to look at the doors of the chapel. Slowly, their eyes drift to me. The Old Ladies look at me curiously. They’re all here with the exception of Ruby—and maybe Alex now, too. Even Chief’s wife, Barbara, is here.

  Not many of the Fort Bragg Forsaken have Old Ladies. They’re mostly young guys with strong appetites who aren’t ready to settle down. It’s been a running joke for years with the younger guys that once a brother is ready to settle down that means he has to find a new charter because he’s too damn old to take care of business properly. It’s what they said to Bear when he knocked up his girl and then married her two kids later. It’s also what they said to Diesel back when that shit went south with Julie, but that didn’t work out so well for them. Even Jim talks about how the club never thought he’d turn into such a pussy, but then he met Ruby. If there’s one thing these guys can agree upon, it’s this: family is the core of everything worth having.

  I check out the tables around me and find that they’re all full with various boxes and decorations. Black toile spills out of one box, and dark red satin is falling out of another. Other tables are littered with magazines and empty beer bottles and even a bong. At one table in the corner are Chel and Dawn—neither of whom I’m up for talking to right now. Chel catches my eye and gives me a sad smile. She’s not been doing so well since Chief died. I never really got it, but she and Chief had a thing that wasn’t as much sexual as it was spiritual. Still, he loved his wife and she’s always been loving to me. I give Chel a small smile and cross the room to express my condolences to Barbara, who is seated between Layla and Mary. Layla looks as fucked up as ever. Her hands scratch at her jeans, and she’s twitching slightly, which must be making Grady mad as hell. No matter how good Grady is to that woman, she just can’t get her shit together.