It makes me think about all the ol’ ladies and what they have been through. I wish more of the girls were here right now. Juliette works with Tool, Joanna seems to need sleep all the time since she’s pregnant, Dawn just had a baby, Sunnie…well, I don’t know where Sunnie is, actually. All I know is that she isn’t here.
“I want him to trust me.”
Sarah puts the knife down and takes the seat next to me. “You think he doesn’t? It isn’t you that he doesn’t trust, Mary. It’s the world. It’s everyone else around us. It’s men like your father, men like the Groundskeeper, men like Maximo that make him realize he can never leave you alone or unprotected. After everything this club has been through in the last couple years, the only place trust exists is here.”
“Damn it!” Knives roars just before slamming the door, and the slam has my hand falling to my chest.
I exhale and rub my temples. “I know. I know, you’re right. I better go check on him. That doesn’t sound good.”
“It never does. Reaper probably called a vote.”
Which means if Knives is mad, Reaper voted in favor of what I wanted.
I steal an apple slice off the counter as I get up and bite into the juicy crisp. The flavor bursts across my tongue, but the Granny Smith apples that are usually sour are muted. It doesn’t taste the same when I know Knives is mad at me. Granny Smith apples are my favorite too. “I need to go check on him. I hate how upset he is,” I say, throwing the other half of the apple in my mouth as I walk away and head toward the man that has my heart.
But he is also a ticking time bomb. His fuse is becoming shorter and shorter until I’m worried the man I’ve come to know and love will be gone because of the circumstances around him. Knives has hidden how he really feels for far too long now, and now that his past is back, I doubt he will ever be able to hide how he feels again
“He has a lot going on. Everything he thought he knew, he didn’t know at all. Keep that in mind, okay? I’m sure he doesn’t know how to process it all.” Sarah gives me a warm smile. I appreciate it, but it does nothing to make me feel better.
I tuck my hands in my jacket pockets and give her the best smile I can and head toward the door; the light spilling in from outside shines from the crack.
I feel like I’m about to meet my maker walking toward the light. My dad used to preach that the light holds acceptance and peace, but I think he has it all wrong.
The same things that happen in the dark, happen in the light too. The only difference is that you can see what is happening rather than wonder.
I’ve never felt like I’ve hated Reaper before, but right now, it is debatable. I can’t believe they took a vote without me because he said I was too close to the issue. Too close? Too fucking close? What a joke. If that happened with Sarah, Reaper would have raised hell, but because he is Prez, he is able to do whatever he wants.
He has the best interest of the club at heart.
I have to keep telling myself that, even though I feel like no one is taking my heart into consideration. It sounds needy. It sounds like I’m a real fucking pussy when it comes to my feelings.
And maybe I am. I’ve kept them locked up for so long. I numbed myself, and it worked, for a very long time, until Mary happened.
Fucking Mary.
She reached inside me with her warmth and thawed my soul. Pandora’s Box has opened, and now my feelings are spilling out, and I can’t contain them. It’s like poison, completely killing who I used to be and changing me into this… I don’t even know what.
I don’t recognize who I am.
“Hey. I’ve been looking for you.”
“You found me.” I hang my head and stare at the ground. Even though it rained the other day, the desert is still cracked and dry, as if it hasn’t seen water in months.
When I left the clubhouse, I walked around toward the back where Skirt’s house used to be. I’m sitting on a stack of cinderblocks that are sitting in the middle of the lot. We are going to try and rebuild it soon. The supplies are slowly coming in. It would be easier if we owned a hardware store. The building process would speed up, and Skirt and his family can have their own space. But right now, the clubhouse is safer for them to live, considering we don’t really party anymore, and the whores aren’t there. If we want to drink, we go to Kings’ Club. And if we get too drunk, Tool has extra rooms in the back with cots where we can sleep it off.
I almost prefer it. I don’t miss the sluts. I miss Becks though, even though she wasn’t a whore. She was a damn good massage therapist. I could use a backrub right now.
Things at the clubhouse won’t be like this forever. Cut sluts come and go all the time, but when they return, the drama between them and the ol’ ladies will return, and with Mary’s attitude, I have no doubt she would kill one of them.
Not that I’d ever give her a reason to. Ruthless Kings can be bastards, but we don’t cheat. Once we find our ol’ lady, no other pussy will do.
It’s a harsh way of putting it, but it’s true. It’s because no other woman makes us fucking feel or makes us weak like our ol’ ladies.
“Knives, I know you don’t want this to happen, and I understand why. I love you. If the tables were turned, I wouldn’t want you to do this either. You and the guys, you are always running into danger. Don’t you think that bothered me before? You might have driven me crazy, but I worried every time you walked out that door to take care of club business.”
“Yeah?” I ask, lifting a thick brow at her.
“Are you so surprised?”
“A little bit. You surprise me, that’s all.” I open my cut pocket and grab a star, but this one is different. It’s old, handmade, and a bit rusted.
“I remember when I met Reaper’s dad, and he said, ‘I have a son about your age.’ And Reaper is a few years older than me, but I think his dad was trying to make me feel better after everything that happened.” I’m not sure why I’m telling her this, it doesn’t make sense, but I feel like I have to. “His Sergeant at Arms, you don’t know him, he died a few years later, took the knives I had in my hand when I arrived at the clubhouse and made me this. They are sharp, so be careful.”
“These are the knives you defended yourself with the day you thought Mason died?”
“Yeah, these are it. It’s ugly, right? Not smooth and pretty like my other ones, but they are jagged, almost more threatening, since they have that knife feel.”
“Your name makes sense now,” she teases, nudging me in the shoulder.
“I want you to have it,” I tell her. I never thought it would be so emotional to give something to someone I love that was built because I missed someone I cared about.
“I can’t take this.”
“You need something to protect yourself. Please, if you’re going to do this, I need to know you’re okay.”
“You aren’t going to fight me?”
“I don’t have the energy to fight you, Hellraiser. I can’t go against Prez. He will kill me. Especially after I made Maizey cry.” I feel fucking terrible about that. I can’t believe I snapped at a little girl who was only trying to make me happy. “I don’t want this to happen. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you too, Mary. You’re everything I didn’t know I needed. After my family died, after Mason, I don’t have the heart to go through another loss.”