But as heavy as his world felt on his shoulders, at least he was safe. Or at least, he had the illusion of safety. He was one of several queer men in their club, and yet, every time he thought about allowing himself even that one small thing—a quiet kiss, a stolen moment with a stranger—his heart seized. He could hear his father’s laughter, hear Rook’s vehement denial that he had wanted it at all. He could feel every single blow raining down on him, as a promise to mark him for life.
And he could hear himself fighting to live—out of spite—to prove that every single year after that moment was lived better and brighter and more important than any year before.
He’d done that much, but it had to be alone.
In order to survive, he couldn’t have it any other way.
Chapter Two
“No.”
Gunner pinched the bridge of his nose, his brain quietly running through several different ways he could hack into society and remove that fucking word from existence, because if he had to hear it one more time…
“I hate ballet.”
He gave Maddie a still, quiet look, priding himself on not pointedly staring around her room at all the ballet shit he’d accumulated over the last eight months for her when she started watching some dance show on Netflix. The problem was, he’d been indulging her for as long as he’d had her, which was most of her life. And maybe it was ironic how spoiled Madeline was—the child who was being raised by an entire motorcycle club—but that was their reality.
Just like him, most of his brothers could not tell the child no.
When she’d pouted her small bottom lip at Smokey and said she wanted to be like Gabby from her dance show, the man showed up at Gunner’s the next day with a business card and a studio name scribbled on the back.
“This kid does deliveries for me, but he also teaches a dance class.”
It was how Gunner had found himself at the parks and rec center, meeting with a bright-eyed woman, Colette, who didn’t give his tattoos or cut a second glance. Instead, she shook Madeline’s hand, gave her a tour of the studio, which was warm with wooden floors and bright with mirrors, and then gave him the new student discount.
Buy one month, get one month free.
Tuesday mornings weren’t much of a sacrifice, and it was even less so when he first caught a glimpse of Mr. B. The parents weren’t allowed to watch—technically—but he did manage a few sneaking glances through the tiny window in the door.
She’d looked happy in her ladybug leotard with the red tutu. She’d looked a little too grown-up for his tastes, which he knew was just inevitable, and that it was the start of the next chapter. She’d looked even more grown-up a moment later when the co-teacher appeared.
Colette had explained him to Gunner before he signed on the dotted line. The class was a blend of hearing and deaf students from five to twelve years old. Mr. B. was a Deaf teacher, there to teach the kids to move to music they could feel and hear. Gunner didn’t totally understand, but the moment he’d laid eyes on the man, he didn’t really need to. His mouth went dry at the sight of him—his rich brown skin, thick curls tied at the nape of his neck, full lips set in a smile that made Gunner’s heart thrash against the inside of his ribs.
As Gunner watched, he saw Mr. B. address each student with his hands, whether they could understand him or not, and encouraged the hearing kids to sign back when they were brave enough to try it. As the weeks went on, he saw him gently correct Madeline’s attempts at ASL. She wasn’t unfamiliar with it. The club Enforcer, Hawke, had a stutter so bad most of the time he couldn’t get more than a few words out. Smokey had raided the library’s donation bin for some old ASL texts, and they were all self-taught, but it was obvious none of it was entirely right. At least, not with the way Gunner couldn’t understand any of what Mr. B. was signing. But it was fine. It wasn’t like he would have had the chance to talk to him anyway.
Gunner wasn’t even supposed to watch, but he stole time at the window with his eyes on Madeline and Mr. B. as he walked her through steps and patiently praised her with more kindness in his eyes than Gunner had seen in most of his life.
He took comfort in his thievery of moments as he watched the lean, delicate man in the front of the class, facing the mirror as he dipped down into a plié. Of course, Gunner was the sort of man who looked—but nothing more. Ever. Because there wasn’t space for it, and there wasn’t time. And he sure as shit wasn’t about to bring some fucking civvie into this life.
Mr. B. was young, and he was soft around his jaw, and his dark eyes were lit up bright by the studio halogens overhead. His skin glowed with a faint sheen of sweat from the rippling humidity the AC struggled to temper, and some of his thick curls escaped the bun at the nape of his neck, framing the sides of his face.
Gunner had tried not to imagine inappropriate things, like pulling out his hair tie and letting the rest of his soft waves fall as he ran the tips of his bitten nails down his sides. He’d tried not to imagine the sounds the man would make, or the way his eyes might flutter shut as Gunner applied teeth to his neck and bit. Lightly, but maybe not too lightly.
But it was a pointless dream. Any chance they had together existed in another universe, and not just because Mr. B. wasn’t exactly a social butterfly, escaping out the back door before the parents came in to collect their kids. It was also that Gunner’s life was too complicated for anything more than a fantasy that lived so far off, he couldn’t even brush the edges as he reached for it.
“If you don’t put your tights on, we can’t go. And if we’re not going,” Gunner said, taking a step back toward her open door, “there’s no point in me paying for it.”
“Fine!” she shouted, throwing her ballet shoes across the room. They hit the closet, bounced off the door, then tumbled toward his feet. “I. Don’t. Want. To. Dance!”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he took a breath and tried to calm the rippling frustration coursing up and down his spine. “Then you have to come with me. Mrs. Jensen isn’t home to babysit.”
Madeline sat up on her bed. “Can I?”
His eyes narrowed as he saw the chink in her armor, her weakness, and he had no shame in exploiting it. “If you promise to be good,” he added.
She crossed her finger over her heart. “I promise. I’ll be real good.”
He heard the lie for what it was, but he held out hope anyway. Like a fool.
For all that Gunner often felt lucky that Madeline was a relatively well-behaved child, she was still a child. She was prone to making promises like, ‘I’ll be on my best behavior,’ and then turning into something closely resembling a gremlin by the time he got to work. They’d been at the shop for an hour, and he was already exhausted, having chased her out of the bay six times.
It was when she tripped over a jack handle and nearly brained herself on the floor that he lost all patience, and she ended up in Smokey’s office screaming her head off as he sat on the floor in the hallway with his knees drawn to his chest, forehead resting against the knobby curves.
“B-b-bad?”
He didn’t need to look up to recognize Hawke’s voice, and he felt a little better. Hawke had come along in recent years, but he’d been around River Crest for a long damn time. He was a tattoo artist, doing Smokey’s ink long before Broken Chains was even a concept, and it hadn’t been much of an argument when he showed up one night with a scribbled note wanting in. He hadn’t come from a previous club, but there was something about him that told Gunner he understood in ways most people never would. An old sort of scarred pain that Gunner understood and a silent request that no one ever ask him about it.