“He’s coming.”
“Down the hallway.”
“Everyone shut the hell up. Act normal.”
“So… beers?”
The guys hissed and chuckled to themselves as loud bootsteps echoed down the side hallway. I gave the guys one last look before pulling away from the group and heading into the kitchen. I didn’t want to be anywhere near Chops at that moment. Not after the kind of stunt he just pulled in that fucking church meeting.
Who the hell did this man think he really was?
Now, more than ever, I knew Chops was guilty. Of what, I wasn’t sure. But I knew he had a hand in all of this. In putting me away. In getting Gage killed.
In murdering Hyde.
It was a police shootout.
“Yeah, with drugs conveniently in a sober man’s house,” I murmured to myself.
“What was that!?” Chops asked.
I ripped open the fridge. “Want a beer? I could sure as hell use one.”
“Since when do we drink at ten in the morning?”
I didn’t skip a beat. “Since when do we sell women off for money?”
The room fell silent as my brain whirled at eleven million miles a minute. My club had been completely turned upside down, and it sounds like it was at least partially supported by men I once respected. The Black Flags were, for some reason, after me and they were terrorizing the only person that hadn’t stabbed me in the back yet. And now, I had a club ready to commit mutiny and overthrow our president while looking to me for secretive tutelage I didn’t have the energy to give.
Though, the idea of running this club the way it deserved to be run did sound appealing.
Nevertheless, I opened my beer first and chugged it back. The deeper I swallowed, the more I hoped the alcohol would wash my sins and my guilt away. I had just fucked my best friend’s wife. Didn’t matter that he was dead, what mattered was that I had desecrated his memory by taking a promise I made to him and turning it inside out. Gage and I always had an understanding between the two of us: we took care of the other’s family. And when I found out that Gage died in that exchange the night I was arrested, I vowed to him to do everything I could to make sure Raven was fully and completely taken care of.
You’re a disgrace.
“You gonna pass us any beer?” Porter asked.
I tossed cans over my shoulder and the guys scrambled to get them. I counted them out, one by one, even going so far as to throw Chops one. Things needed to look somewhat put together on the outside. Even though I was secretly planning to get rid of him for good, that didn’t mean I had to clue him into exactly how I felt on the inside. All he needed to know was that I didn’t agree with any of the bullshit he brought forth.
He didn’t need to know anything else beyond that.
I cracked open a second beer and turned to face the guys. Chops studied every single one of them. Attempting to read them the way Hyde could always read us. It made me grin, how he thought he could be like him.
You’ll never be like him.
Because for starters, Hyde always had respect for women.
The guilt still raged on, though. The more beer I sucked down, the worse it became. Part of me rejoiced at the fact that we had finally gotten together. Countless years had gone by where I hadn’t smelled the faint lavender odor of her conditioner. Countless years had flown by without so much as hearing her voice in my ear. Or seeing her on my doorstep. Or listening to her laugh at her favorite show, The Golden Girls.
I had missed so much of her life. Even if it wasn’t mine to miss or enjoy in the first place.
But she was still Gage’s girl. Yes, it had been five years. Yes, he was dead. But brothers like him and myself had pacts and understandings that went well beyond the club. Gage and I had been bro-mates. Soulmates, meant for one another in the most platonic of ways. We did everything together, talked about everything together, and made almost no decision without one another.
Except his engagement.
He never talked to me about that before he proposed.
Distance. That’s what I need.
I crumbled up my second beer can in my hand and tossed it into the trash. In the five years that Gage had been gone, the only thing keeping me away from Raven was prison. The distance between us, actually. And that was what I needed to do again: in order to keep fulfilling my promise without backstabbing my brother was to keep distance between myself and Raven.
I couldn’t make that kind of decision about her life without speaking with her first, though.
I owed her at least that.
“Got anything to say?” Chops asked.
All eyes were on me as I looked across the room at our president. “Gotta go see about a thing.”
Then, I started down the hallway.
The floorboards creaked as I made my way to my room. I saw the door cracked open and paused to draw in a deep breath before I reached for the doorknob. I cleared my throat to announce myself without startling Raven.
However, when I eased the door open, she wasn’t inside.
“Raven?” I asked.
I walked over to the bed and gazed around the room. “Raven, you here?”
Worry clenched my gut as I rushed over to the closet. I rolled the pocket door open before darting down the hallway toward the bathroom. Maybe she had relegated herself to a shower or a nice hot bath.
I knocked on the door. “Raven?”
Tanner sighed. “For fuck’s sake, can’t a guy take a shit?”
I sighed. “Sorry, man.”
I walked up and down the hallways, trying not to run about as I searched for her. But with every room I ducked my head into, the chances of me finding her on the property grew slim. I slipped into the other shared bathroom only to be met with darkness. I walked into the back room where we kept extra food and toiletries for emergencies to see if she simply wanted to get away for a little while.
“Raven?” I asked as I flipped on the light.
Yet, she was nowhere to be found in any of the dark corners of the clubhouse.
I dashed down the side hallway and froze. The lingering scent of her body spray caught my nose and led me toward the side door. My hand fell to the knob and it still felt warm, giving me hope that maybe she wasn’t far away.
“Raven?” I asked.
It got harder and harder not to roar out her name as I slipped onto the side of the porch. I kept my feet as quiet as possible, hoping and praying that no one heard me panicking. The last thing I needed with a prostitution-hungry president was to let the one woman I loved out of my sight around him.
If Chops has already run into her, I swear to fuck I’ll—
As I scanned the side of the clubhouse, I saw her standing at the edge of the cliff face. Our clubhouse sat on the edge of a fall-off, dropping straight down into a secluded beach with waves lapping against the shoreline. And standing there, with the wind whipping through her hair and her arms folded across her chest, was Raven.
Gazing out at the horizon as I hopped over the porch railing.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, trotting up to her.
She didn’t bother looking up at me. “Leaving.”
I stood beside her as my anger mounted. “You shouldn’t be standing out here without someone with you. It’s stupid and dangerous.”
She shrugged. “Don’t really care.”
I scoffed. “Well, you might not care, but I do. I made a promise to Gage that I’d—”
She finally looked up at me. “That promise include fucking his wife?”
I winced, but I didn’t say anything. And when she sighed, I heard a pain whisper itself along her breath.
“It was a stupid idea for you to try and leave. Especially after those Black Flag jagoffs came knocking at your door. For all we know, they’re watching you,” I said.
She drew in a deep breath. “Yes, it was a stupid idea.”
I blinked. “Right. Yeah. So, let’s get you back inside.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going back in there.”
I slid my hand onto her shoulder. “I’ll walk back inside with you. But you can’t leave.”
She shrugged off my touch. “While I’m still not sure how I’m getting home, I’m not going back into that clubhouse.”
“And why not?”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Too many memories, Brooks. And they all hurt.”
I turned my eyes out toward the blue horizon. “I suppose it’s a bit awkward being there after all these years.”
She snickered. “I knew you’d at least understand that part.”
“Kind of feels like I don’t recognize anything anymore.”
She shuffled on her feet. “Exactly.”
I peeked down at her. “Things aren’t recognizable between us anymore, is it?”
Her head fell off to the side. “No. It’s kind of awkward.”
I nodded slowly. “Right, right.”
She cleared her throat. “But anyway, this thing between us isn’t important right now. What’s important is what I overheard before I came out here and got entranced by the ocean.”
I blinked. “Wait, what?”
She looked up at me. “Did you know that Gage loved the ocean? Skinny-dipping, especially.”
I turned to face her. “Raven, what did you overhear?”
Her eyes grew scared. “Did you know that about him?”
I shook my head softly. “No, I didn’t.”
“Maybe we should take a walk on the beach down there, then. You know, to memorialize him. You never really got to do that with us, you know.”
I caught onto what she was asking, so I offered my arm. “Ladies’ first.”
I knew what it sounded like when someone was trying to get out of earshot, and Raven was trying to do just that. So, I walked her over to the rugged set of steps Hyde had built for the club one day to easily get down to the private beach that was otherwise inaccessible. The ocean breeze kicked up, wafting through my hair and tossing the smell of her body spray in my direction. And as I drew in long, silent breaths, I ushered her out onto the beach.
Before she finally started talking. “Chops was out on the porch when I was attempting to sneak out.”
I nodded. “And?”
She peeked over her shoulder up at the clubhouse. “Put on a smile and I’m going to lean against you.”
I did as she asked. “Someone watching?”
She leaned her head against my arm. “Chops.”
The hairs on the nape of my neck stood on end. “Maybe we should go back to your place. Just to pick up some things for you if you’re going to stay here.”
“And there’s no reason to fear the Black Flags coming back since the police were called out.”
“We could take the back way in. No one would even see me.”
Her voice lowered to such a soft whisper that I had to strain to hear her. “I know you don’t understand now, but we need to stay at my place. Not here. I promise it’ll make sense once we can talk.”
I nodded slowly, lowering my voice to match hers. “Then, I’m staying at your place to protect you in case anyone comes back.”
“What is Chops—”
“You leave Chops to me,” I growled, “you just focus on getting your words together. Because when we get back to your place, I want to know what the fuck’s going on.”
She nodded. “All right, let’s wave off toward the horizon, then get back on up there.”
I watched her wave and mocked her movements, repeating the action from Gage’s memorial service that I never got to attend. He had been cremated and sent off on a small paper boat out into the ocean before a small timed firework went off. It sent the boat up in smoke, let his ashes naturally spread along the saltwater he loved so much, and gave him the Viking sendoff he always thought was cool as fuck.
Then, we turned together and made our way back up to the clubhouse.
And all the while, Chops watched our movements like a fucking hawk.
