Thrash (14 page)

“
So you’re grouchy in the
morning,” I say. “I’m going to keep that in mind.” She doesn’t move
or offer me entrance into the house, so I take it upon myself to
get past the doorway. I step up and into the house with my heavy
boots and move forward. When we’re close enough to touch, she moves
backward and then moves around me to shut the door.

“
What are you doing here?”
she asks, crossing her arms over her chest. I ignore the question
and make my way into the kitchen. It’s not exactly tidy, but isn’t
really dirty, either. It’s just lived in—with magazines and
newspapers strewn about the counter and a few bills sitting opened
beside them. The sink has a few plates, glasses, and a fry pan in
it waiting to be washed. From the looks of the floor it could
probably use a sweep and mop, but it’s not gross like it is at mine
and Ryan’s place.

Off to the side of the room is a round
breakfast table. I pull a chair out and plop down, listening to the
wood creak beneath me. Following behind me, Nic enters the room and
leans up against the sink.

“
How much is it going to
cost to pay for the scratch on your bike?” she asks and moves
toward the table. When she gets closer, I see what her eyes are
fixated on—her purse. It’s hanging off the back of the chair beside
me. Reaching out, she grabs the strap and lifts the purse into the
air. I catch my fingers as they itch to move in her direction. I’ve
been thinking about that shit she said last week. Actually, I’ve
been thinking about that and her pussy, but she’d be damn pissed if
she knew that my preferred way to make up is by getting my dick
inside of her again.

That night brought me back
to being in high school and thinking she was bad ass. But back then
she thought she was too good for me and the MC. Dating that jackass
Darren—who she apparently still keeps in touch with—who thought the
rules the MC laid down for the town didn’t apply to him. I knew Nic
belonged with a guy like that—who could give her more than some
bastard from the public housing development like me
could.

But I never stopped thinking about
it.

And damn if seeing him with her at the
coffee shop didn’t make me want to slit his fucking throat and wash
the floor in his blood.

“
Not a dime,” I say. She
pauses and sets her purse on the table, giving me a grouchy gaze.
Looking around the kitchen makes me hungry, and I think I want a
sandwich. “Why don’t we talk about it over lunch?” I suggest. Her
eyes widen slightly as she looks around and then down at the shirt
she’s wearing.

“
I’m not going to lunch
with you,” she says, shaking her head. I shrug and lean back in the
seat. “What part of ‘I’m not doing this’ didn’t you
understand?”

“
Then we’ll eat here. What
are you going to make me?” I ask, ignoring her comment.

The look on her face is incredulous.
She’s obviously not up for playful in the mornings. Maybe I can
work on that. She takes a long moment to look at me like I’m the
world’s biggest idiot before she breaks out into a hearty laughter.
She throws her head back and lets her entire body shake from
laughing so hard. My eyes travel down her torso to her tits as they
bounce around. It’s so rare that Nic smiles, and even more rare
that she seems even remotely happy. I drink this moment in for all
it’s worth and revel in seeing her this way.

“
I’m not sure what you
find so funny. I’m hungry and you need to feed me,” I say in a mock
serious tone. She looks down at me with the faint twinkle of
laughter in her eyes.

“
So go find an Old Lady,”
she says then clears her throat and runs a hand through her hair.
Her body is spotted with tattoos here and there. Like it was
yesterday, I remember the string of star tattoos she has on her
lower belly. There’s nine of them, and I want to know what they
stand for. But it’s the tattoo of the robin that’s on the top of
her left wrist that catches my eye. It’s a beautiful tattoo—very
intricate with excellent coloring. The reds and the yellows of the
bird rest above a light teal background. I’d recognize that work
anywhere, even if I didn’t know that Torque—one of my brothers
who’s doing a year in county—did it for her birthday last
year.

Unable to stop myself, I
reach out and grab her left hand. She drops the hand that’s in her
hair immediately and looks down at me. Her eyes hold a curiosity
she refuses to voice. I give her hand a light tug and bring her
closer to me. She moves slowly, but doesn’t pull away. I move back
in the chair, which gives her enough room to crawl into my lap. Not
that she will, but it’s something I’m about to try to make
happen.

“
Come here, baby,” I say
quietly and pull her down on my lap. I hold her firm, expecting a
struggle, but she doesn’t give me one. For once, she’s agreeable
and plops into my lap. She turns to face me and shakes her head
just slightly. Her silence is so absolute that it makes the entire
room feel sad and lonely. Or maybe that’s me, because when I’m near
her, I just want to be closer. If she’s standing next to me, I want
to touch her. If she’s in my lap, I want her naked. If she’s
bitching at me, I want my dick inside her. It never seems to be
enough, and I wonder if it ever will be.

“
Don’t think I’m going to
feed you just because you’re trying to be charming,” she says, but
it comes out as a whisper. Again, so very quiet.

“
I bet if I made you come
a few times you’d want to feed me,” I say lowly and bring my lips
to her neck.

“
No,” she says, but her
body sinks into me.

“
No? You don’t like this?”
I ask her as I place gentle kisses on her neck. A shiver runs up
her spine, making her body shake in response.

“
No, and I’m not going to
feed you,” she says. Quiet. Breathy. Fuck. “That’s not what we
do.”

I stop what I’m doing and pull back,
narrowing my eyes, and give her a hard look. Trying to keep my
voice quiet so I don’t send her running, I say, “What we
do?”

Her eyes travel around the room before
they land on my cut. She reaches up and places a hand above my
heart right on top of the patches that says FORSAKEN and FORT
BRAGG. Giving me a soft pat she lets her eyes travel back up to
mine. “This. You’re Forsaken and I’m a Lost Girl. I’m not your
girlfriend, and I’m not your Old Lady. I don’t do feeding
times.”

The realization of what she’s talking
about hits me between the eyes and makes my gut turn to mush. We
were on our way somewhere before I fucked it all up. Now she’s just
compliant and disconnected, and I hate it. The way her voice sounds
and how she’s touching me, she might as well not even be in the
room with how present she is. As much as she pissed me the fuck
off, and fucked up in front of the club, I’d take every insult she
has to give better than I can take this. It’s maddening.

My head swims with a
thousand responses I could give her. I could try to make her feel
better by telling her that it’s not like that with us, and I could
tell her that brothers fall for Lost Girls all the time. She
already knows I want her for my woman, I want her voted in, and
even if she doesn’t want to believe it,
I
believe that we can get over this
shit. She pisses me off, and I’m going to piss her off, and she’s
just going to have to come to terms with that. But if I tell her
that, she’ll run. Nic doesn’t do sweet because she doesn’t know
what to do with it, but asshole she understands. Only, I don’t want
to be an asshole right now. I like the quiet and the closeness. I
like feeling of her pressed up against me. The last thing I want to
do is to give her a reason to run, and being an asshole would do
just that.

“
You think too much,” I
say with a grumble.

“
And you don’t think
enough,” she protests. She’s wrong, but fuck if I’m going to argue
with her right now. I don’t know how many more screw-ups she’ll
forgive before she convinces Chief or Diesel to get the club to
vote on shooting me. Not that they would, but I wouldn’t put the
attempt past her.

“
Look,”
I say and lean toward her. Her entire left side presses against me.
Her skin is so cold, and her nipples strain beneath the aged tee
shirt. “We make the rules. If we decide that all we do is fuck,
then that’s all we do. If we decide that you cook for me,
then
that’s
what we do. There’re no fucking rules here, baby. The only
rule is ‘you don’t fuck me over and I don’t fuck you over.’ That’s
it.”

She turns her head away
from me. Raising her chin toward the ceiling, she says in a much
harder voice, “But you
did
fuck me over. You fucked me over, you humiliated
me, and you’re acting like it’s on me to do better.”

“
Clean slate, babe. I
fucked up, I get that, but we gotta move past that
shit.”

“
No,” she says getting
loud as fuck right in my ear. “Fuck that, and fuck you. You wanna
be my man, you need to do better. You wanna call the shots and take
care of shit in my life, then show me that you can. Buckle up,
dude, and quit puttin’ that shit on me. You fucked up, and I moved
on.”

“
I
am
your man,” I say, taking her face in my hands and forcing her
to keep her attention focused on me.
Buckle up
, she said and it’s like
sitting in church and listening to her dad tell us to stop being
pussies. Buckle up, he’d say, and we’d listen because Butch wasn’t
one for casual chitchat. He spoke and we fucking listened. Which
reminds me, I need to get word to Butch about me and Nic. I can’t
visit him myself because of my record, and we don’t put club
business down on paper, but as a brother, he’s got to know I’m
making his daughter my Old Lady. It’s only right.

“
No,”
she says. “No man of mine hurts me that badly. No man of mine fucks
a filthy whore like that when he knows I can see him.
That does not happen
. So
no, you’re not my man.” Her words twist in my gut, making me feel
like a fucking loser. I have to do better for her and by her. Short
of fucking up club business, fucking up by not taking care of your
woman is a big fucking problem. Rage, Jim’s dad and our previous
charter president, had a zero tolerance policy for failing at being
a man.

“
I’m going to do better by
you, going to take care of you,” I say, placing a kiss to her
forehead.

“
And for how long? When
does this expire?”

The blow is small, but it
feels like a shrapnel bomb that goes off, leaving tiny little
splinters all over my flesh. Her once soft body turns rigid, and
she pulls away. I don’t fight it, but let her stand and then cross
the room. She’s like a cat—territorial and guarded. Resuming her
place in front of the sink, she folds her arms over her chest. I
stand from my seat and concede that we’re not going to get anywhere
today. She doesn’t need bullshit apologies, she just needs me to be
here and prove her wrong.

To my left is the
refrigerator, which is near the gas range, and adjacent to the
sink, where Nic’s standing. I stand and walk to the fridge where I
open the door, expecting to find it a little light on groceries,
but totally unprepared for what I find. There’s a mostly empty jar
of pickle juice in the door and half a stick of margarine in the
butter compartment. There are no eggs or bacon, or even sausages.
In a package that expired a week ago, there’s a few tortillas and
some mostly empty condiment containers. There’s no milk or soda and
not a single fucking beer—which is just blasphemy. A few other
items are strewn about in the fridge, but nothing that could create
anything edible. The freezer isn’t much better. There are a few
bags of frozen vegetables and a gelato carton that’s growing
freezer burn on the container.

Shooting Nic a skeptical
glance, I find that she’s not even looking my way. She hops lightly
on one foot and then trades off, hopping on the other. Rifling
through the cupboards doesn’t produce much more than the fridge or
the freezer did. I’ve spent enough time watching her, and knowing
her habits, to know that she doesn’t do blow, but she’s so fucking
skinny she looks like she does lines for breakfast. Fuck. How bad
is my girl hurting that she’s a goddamn twig and has no food in the
house? Doesn’t matter that I ain’t been in this house in years—she
deserves better, and I should have known she needed help. This shit
isn’t just on my shoulders. The entire club’s failed my girl, and I
don’t know that I’ll ever be able to get right with that. We take
care of our own and we take the risks we do, doing the shit we do,
to make sure we can do that. But this? None of us are good enough
for Butch’s girl, and if he knew, he’d have every right to call an
officer challenge if he had a vote right now.

“
When’s the last time you
went to the store?” I ask in a tone that comes across closer to
judgment than I intend for it to.

“
I’m going to pick up a
few things later,” she says and huffs.

“
Tell me you normally have
more food in this house?”

“
Yeah, but Jeremy eats
everything in sight,” she says and shifts on her feet again. It’s a
nervous habit she’s had since high school.

“
So let’s go now,” I say
and look over her bare legs and up to her face.