It wouldn’t exactly be unheard of for the president to say “Hey, you’re on your own. Handle your own shit. But we are here if shit is looking really bad.”
Wasn’t that, essentially, what Fallon had told Cary at the beginning of the shit with his girl?
It was likely what he would tell me too.
So I was just cutting out the middle man until it became clear that I had to get some backup from the club.
I balled up my cut and stuck it in the compartment on my bike before climbing on and heading out.
I didn’t want anyone to associate the club with the other people I was about to be involved with.
It wasn’t an overly long drive from Navesink Bank to a town just outside of New York City where the plan was supposed to go down. But the hour gave me a lot of time alone with my thoughts.
I didn’t think about the coming job, though.
Oh, no.
I thought about her.
The missing woman who, if I were being honest with myself, I’d never actually gotten over. I’d never really even tried. I’d just left her. And let her continue to be a part of me, to have a hold on me. Through the miles and the years.
It was always Louana.
It would always be Louana.
I think, to an extent, I’d told myself that, eventually, I was going to go back to Navesink Bank, patch in, then get myself a steady life going. From there, I’d just find myself the woman that I would love second best. Because there was no knocking Lulu out of her place in my heart.
I’d even convinced myself that it wasn’t sad to make that decision, that people did it every day.
They did.
I think most people had that big fucking all-consuming love. But it was at the wrong time. Or it was just… too much. Too big, too strong, too terrifying.
So they make a choice.
To step away.
To move on.
But a huge part of them would only ever belong to that one person. There would always be parts of them that no one else could touch.
That didn’t mean that they couldn’t go on to live great lives. To find someone, marry, settle down, raise kids, and live a different version of happily ever after.
They might even be able to convince themselves for weeks or months or even years at a time that the life they chose was everything they could ever want. But at some point, in those quiet moments just before sleep, or when a particular song comes on, or you see someone who reminds you of them, they would be reminded of that lost big love. And all the potential it had.
I figured that would be my life.
I would find someone.
We would love each other.
But sometimes, Louana would pop into my mind, and I would once again need to mourn the loss of everything that could have been.
The problem was, when I figured that was my future, I also figured that I wouldn’t be in contact with Louana again, that her life would take her somewhere else, or that our paths just simply wouldn’t cross often enough for it to be a problem.
Then she barged her way back into my life. Into my days and my nights.
And it seemed to wipe away any thoughts that I had about being able to move on, to be with someone else.
I hadn’t even been able to see another woman since Lulu joined the club.
Which only made the infatuation with her worse.
Then touching her again? Being inside her again? Hearing her cry out my name against my palm as she came?
Fuck.
There was no moving on.
Even if, when I got back to the clubhouse, her shit was packed up and she was gone. I couldn’t imagine trying to find a future with anyone else.
The thought of her not being there, though, with her hard-ass attitude that hid all her soft and sweet, with her smart mouth and her confidence, with her eclectic movie choices, and her surly mood when injury or illness put her down? Yeah, that shit was unfathomable.
The darkness that overtook me made me need to push all those thoughts away and, instead, cling to the good shit, the moments here or there when she let her guard down with me, when she gave me a genuine smile, or laughed at something I said. The way her eyes would go dreamy when she was reminded of something from our past together. Or even just the way her skin would be a little rosy after her shower. Or the way it would be the same color when she was turned on for me.
Those were the kinds of thoughts I needed to have on my mind as I pulled down the side street that would lead me toward the people who’d been the dark cloud over my life for years.
Happy thoughts.
Things that made me really fucking want to make my way back home.
“Fucking finally,” a familiar voice said, making my stomach tighten and my spine straighten.
God, I hated that voice. And the fucker who it belonged to. And the fact that I’d ever gotten myself wrapped up with him and his crew.
See, once upon a time, I’d been young and fucking stupid. On my own for the first time. Running low on cash. And with way too much pride to call home to my parents and ask them to loan me some.
Odd jobs had been keeping my head above water. A little construction here. A little yard work there. Anything I could do that paid by the job instead of an hourly rate that would be given to me a week or two later.
I needed the money right then. I was surviving on ninety-nine cent snacks and random shit I managed to forage in the woods that I was calling home since hotel and motel money was long gone already.
It was at that low point that they stumbled upon me.
Or, rather, I’d stumbled upon them.
You see, the woods weren’t quiet at night, despite what all the books and shows and movies like to tell you.
On the contrary, really, the woods were alive at night. The wind rushing through the leaves. The crunch of twigs and dried foliage on the ground from small animals. The hoots of owls. The calls of other beasts.
It wasn’t quiet.
But it was predictable.
So when you heard something that didn’t belong, it could wake you from a dead fucking sleep.
Which was what happened that night.
I’d knifed up in my tent, heart hammering in my chest, thinking for a moment that I’d just been having some sort of nightmare.
Until I heard it again.
Screaming.
Now, I wasn’t the only person living in the woods. Times were hard for people. There was a couple a while off who’d had their camper towed and couldn’t afford to get it out, so they’d been using their camping gear while working odd jobs so they could get it back out.
Further off than that was a vet who claimed he just couldn’t exist in normal society.
And while I hadn’t seen her personally, there were rumors about a “wild woman” who’d made this area her home for decades.
We weren’t alone in the woods.
In more ways than one.
So we minded our business as a whole, but there was also an unspoken agreement that we would all help when we could.
So when someone was screaming in the woods in the middle of the night, you got up and tried to investigate and help.
It could be anything, of course.
Someone stumbling out to pee and breaking a bone, or getting stabbed by something. Or, worst case, something like a bear cornering them.
I grabbed my bear spray as I stumbled to slip into my shoes, then make my way into the woods, not exactly sure where the noise came from, but making my way in that general direction.
The camper-less couple from Appalachia’s words came back to me. About not following sounds into the woods at night. About fae and creatures that best be left to their own devices.