Grey (Storm's Soldiers MC Book 2) (8 page)

“Anything important?” I asked.

“Yeah, actually. But not as important as a poker game.” Homer pulled over a chair and sat down by me.

We looked at each other a while longer, and then I sucked it back in. Whatever. Homer liked to fuck around – with me, more than the others. He was more practical than Thurge, but he had that same fire lighting him, that same certainty he was the vanguard for a revolution.

It didn’t sit right with him that I was here primarily for family, not for the fight. I would call these men my brothers, but to him that meant nothing unless we were brothers for a cause. Better yet, brothers in arms.

“What’s the buy?” he said.

“Just a twenty, man,” Asher said. “It’s just a nice friendly game.

“Why of course. We’re all family here.”

Bills shuffled forth from various pockets, but Homer dropped a fifty. We all turned to him. “Come on boys, the Soldiers are riding high. We can be friendly and still make it interesting.”

There was no honor to be had in bitching, so we all joined the bastard. Asher dealt and the game commenced in earnest. All the faces were tightened at the sight of the money pile in the middle, but I played it loose. Others piled in at the slightest twinge of luck, but I hung back and timed my bets.

I won a hand. Instead of joy, the victory reminded me of the day before. I’d aimlessly been flipping through some math book Meagan had, seeing how to calculate odds. It was much more than math behind my game, but I could see the pieces of it at play now. Even here with my boys, a piece of Meagan was still with me in some little way.

Before long, it was just me and Thurge and Homer. There was a yowl, and it was just me and Homer. He had the more chips, but that pile hadn’t much changed while I’d gobbled up everyone else’s to build my stack. I got the sense his reluctance now was a nod to my style.

“Call, son.”

Thurge dealt now. The others hadn’t left after they’d gotten out, not with the President still in. My hand was a good one – a pair of queens. They were both white, and I was grateful. I could barely stand the sight of the black cards in our decks anymore. The river gave me a third queen and I just nodded. Homer glanced between me and the cash a couple times and I knew his words even before he said it.

“All in.”

He had shit, it was plain as day. Homer was a man of force, not cunning. It didn’t serve him on this occasion. I splayed back on my seat and threw in my cards, face up.

“I’m in, boss.”

Homer grunted and flipped his cards. He had a king to match the one on the table, but his other card was a puny two. Thurge flipped the first of the river and the two got matched. It didn’t matter much. Even if he got the two again, I’d still…

Thurge flipped over a king. Full house, kings over queens. I’d been edged out.

“Well, then, that looks alright,” Homer said. The table broke out in equal swears and whistles. I looked at my white cards and saw them in red. Odds were odds, I knew that. I also knew that money should have been a good dinner for my girl. Now it would go to this fat bastard.

Homer saw the fire in my eyes, but here his leadership shone. He held out a hand. “Just luck of the draw, Vaughn. You played it well.”

The blood sank down from my head, and I returned the shake.

“It just returned from where it came,” I said. “I suppose I’ll take off then too.”

“Hey, when you gonna bring that sweet thing of yours around?” Homer asked. “We can clean up if that’s what you’re worried about.”

I chuckled and shook my head. “This ain’t her kind of scene.”

“No?” Homer said. “Well, it’s gotta be if this thing lasts. This is your family Vaughn. You can’t keep her away.”

I nodded, and hoped the flash of worry didn’t run to my face. I rounded out from my seat, and made for the doors. Right before I pushed through, Calix pushed in. A look of apprehension passed from him to me. My heart flared as it always did with such looks these days, but he saw the table cheering in my direction and his face lifted into a smile.

“See you, bro,” he whispered.

Brother. Family. The words rang like bells in my head the whole ride over to Meagan’s. Homer might be a son of a bitch, but he wasn’t wrong. This situation couldn’t last forever.

The Soldiers were my life. Calix was blood. Without them, I had nothing in this world. Nothing but Meagan. But I couldn’t hold one in each hand without the two ever clasping together. The Soldiers would never let this be and, fuck, I couldn’t blame them either.

The idea of Pop and Calix and Thurge turning their backs to me didn’t sit right. Meagan could be a lot of things, but she couldn’t plug the holes that going open with this relationship would leave in my life. She wasn’t family. Not anytime soon.

My stomach lay churning as I creaked through her front door. Music blew back out at me like a gust of wind, small chirping notes that pecked through the air like arrows.

I shut the door, eased over to the living room and saw Meagan’s strong, small back taught and tense under a tight grey and navy sweater. Her hands danced along the grand piano keys, and her hair trembled. I was sure she had on that sunshine smile of hers. All my consternation faded away. Things were still good. Why worry about the future?

The song petered out, and I was about to creep up to her, but she started hustling through pages and I stayed put. She folded a book flat on her stand, swallowed a breath and landed on the first note of new song.

It trembled through the air like a voice, and my breath caught. I had never heard her play this before, but something about it echoed in my memory.

A chord followed and I felt my hands go to fists against the wall. My head seemed to flash light and dark even under the steady yellow light of the room.

The song swept out, long and dark and deep. Vast sounds rumbled from the piano, through the floor and into me. My head swam with visions. A woman with bright blonde hair stood in my mind as clear as day.

It was my mother.

I’d seen pictures of her before and grainy old videos, but this image of her was as clear as if she hung before me.

I shut my eyes and looked up at the side of her. We were sitting on a bench, but her face was serious. More notes rumbled through me and I realized that she was the one playing, that this song had first been hers.

I was transfixed. Her face looked serious as her hands moved – long graceful white ones, hands much like my own. One came dancing along the keys right past my face. It smelled of some flower - roses maybe - but then it flicked away. Her hands came back a few more times, but they didn’t stay for so long or as close.

Her face sat tight now, her eyes completely shut, her head tilted toward the ceiling. I tried to see what she saw, but could only look up as far as her face. As petite and elegant as she was, I was smaller yet.

The song didn’t crash to an end, but sank out like a wave. Suddenly the air was dry and her eyes flitted open. They turned to me and crinkled, bright and blue. Her mouth spread in the kindest smile I had ever seen.

“Hey Vaughn,” she whispered. “Did you like that?”

My face wobbled up and down.

“Why don’t you come try?” she asked. “Come on, come to Mommy.”

The long arms reached for me, but I shook my head and skittered off the stool. My bright red bike was parked near the bench, ready for the getaway and I jumped on and started pedaling.

My mom did not follow. She just laughed, her voice bubbling and high, fading, as I crunched the pedals round and round, away from her. Towards a darkened doorway…

“Vaughn!”

I opened my eyes. I was slumped on the floor. How the hell? My hands lay at my sides, my legs slid out. Meagan crouched over me, her face shining like dark gold in the room light, her eyes full of worry.

“God, are you ok?” she asked. “I didn’t even hear you fall. What happened?”

My mouth was dry. I gulped a couple of times, and tried to figure it out for myself. “My mom,” I finally said. “My mom used to play that song.”

A sudden dampness sprang to my eyes, and I sealed them shut. There was no dark though, just my mother’s face, crisp and full of life, smiling down on me.

I felt Meagan’s arms wrap around my center. She crept over me and her soft little head nestled on my chest, right over my heart, pouring her heat through my thick leather jacket.

It was all I could do to keep it in.

Meagan wouldn’t be family some day.

Somehow, she already was.

CHAPTER NINE

Meagan

I’m not sure why it occurred to me that I needed to get the two of them together.

Heck, Vaughn and I hadn’t been together a month yet. His breakdown had been a bit of it. Of course, Vaughn was too much of a tough guy to really show what he was feeling inside, but after a while on the dining room floor there, he had shared his thoughts. He told me that might have been the last song he had heard his mother play.

God help me, but there’s no catnip like seeing your man broken and finding yourself with the power to make him whole. We cuddled, but the heat built up way beyond that and I descended on him right there on that bare hardwood. Soon, he was giving it back hot and heavy. It was odd and weird, but sweet Jesus was it hot. That’s the good thing about dating a white boy. You know his Oedipus syndrome can’t be all that bad if he’s into you.

There was a definite change after that night. We would touch even when we wanted nothing more. I never felt that close with Rico, even after two years.

Anyway, that was why it made a whole lot of sense to me that Vaughn needed to get right with Darryl.

This wasn’t a one girl job. I knew that. I also knew the one girl I needed was the one who would not want anything to do with this.

“Good lord,” Tamara said from her end of the living room sofa, hand on her head in disbelief. I sat patiently on the other end. She’d just made me go back into the juicy details of that first horrific surprise meeting. “That story’s so nuts, I’m not even upset you two were going at it in the middle of our damn house.”

“Oh, you never sit on the piano bench anyway,” I said.

Her brow crossed. “Wait, tell me you at least wiped that shit down with sanitizer.”

“Jesus, of course. I’m not a pig.” I snorted and pecked at a beer and tried to stay calm, but I really did need her and inside I was flipping cartwheels. “So, can you help?”

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and read some message off the stucco bumps. “You sure you want me?” she said. “You got a ton of other friends you can call.”

“I’m calling on the friend who lives with me. Besides, you know you’ve got more brain than the rest of them put together.”

We both laughed and sipped at our drink. My work girls and my college girls had all had a drunken night last weekend and wound up back at my house for boozy karaoke. When Tara popped out of her room, I’d panicked that this was the last straw, but she had taken the mic and belted out some Tina Turner like nobody’s business. Heck, all of them had gotten along just fine – it was me who’d been putting up walls.

“Please, Tara,” I said. “You’re the only one Darryl’s into. Speaking of, maybe you can actually give him a shot.”

“Alright, fine, I’ll help. But I’m not going to date Darryl. You’re brother’s nice, Meagan, but I don’t go for hardass types.”

“He’s not though,” I said, wondering why I was whining when I’d already won my actual fight.

Tara raised an eyebrow. “He’s not?”

I gave it an honest thought, and wound up with nothing more than a shrug. Ugh, one more thing to apologize to Darryl for.

A couple mornings later, I waited alongside her at the diner near one of the corners of little 5 points. The place wasn’t exactly hoppin’ but there was a decent mid-morning bustle. A thin crowd on the other side of the windows streamed in and out of the open boutiques and smoke shops nearby.

It was enough that the two rough guys I was bringing together might think twice before causing a scene. A very little twice, maybe, but hopefully enough for me to start bridging the Grand Canyon of a gap.

All I could hope for was Darryl to give Vaughn a chance to catch up to the 21
st
century. For Vaughn, well, this was a chance to catch up. He had a way to go, that much was clear, but I could see a light at the end of his tunnel, and I could see he wanted to reach it. My brother counted as exposure therapy. Heck, maybe this would be the first time he’d broken bread with a black man in his life.

Tara was tapping her foot under the table, humming a little ditty.

“Are you nervous?” I asked. “I know this is hard.”

“Pfft. Not even a little. I’m just here to enjoy the train-wreck.”

I slapped her wrist, but not too hard. Either way, her being here worked for me. The rattling of her foot picked up pace.

“Here comes the Midnight express from South Atlanta.”

Darryl was already on his way over. He’d squeezed into a black tee and jeans , and I was a bit alarmed to see a long white bandage across his cheek. The cloudy look he always wore vanished like a snowflake in the sun as he registered who I was next to.