Lucy

 

I didn’t know why it was so important to visit Dad just then, but as soon as I mentioned the idea to Becky, I knew it was the right thing to do. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to my father’s grave since we buried him. The plot was nice, as was the cemetery itself. I knew there were some where the graves were overgrown and the trees were dead and the flowers—if there even were some—were nothing but cheap fake-looking ones made from fabric or plastic. This place, thankfully, wasn’t like that.

 

We’d stopped at a flower shop to pick up some wildflowers. Dad had liked them, though I suspected it was more because they were my favorite rather than any personal preference on his part. When I was around six or seven, I told him they were the best kind of flowers because they grew all on their own and they didn’t care where they ought to grow or what they ought to look like. They were what they wanted to be and no one could tell them different. Of course, most all flowers were like that, but as a kid, I didn’t understand the difference and thought wildflowers were just these pretty little weeds that couldn’t be tamed.

 

I carried a bouquet of them now as we walked through the multitude of plots. Becky hung back a few steps, understanding she was there if I needed her, but otherwise this wasn’t really the kind of thing that concerned her. She knew my father, but not well. It was nice to know she was there, at the very least, a familiar and comforting presence that gave me something to ground myself to.

 

There were so many plots, some with flowers, some without, and it started to get me. There were so many dead people buried here. People who had had lives and families and hopes and dreams. People who’d maybe gone before their time or had been taken before given the chance to do the things they really needed to do.

 

I thought of Dad like that, though maybe that wasn’t a fair comparison. Most of these people, maybe even all of them, had gone by some force that was beyond their choosing. A car accident, a plane crash. Some sickness like cancer or pneumonia or a bad fever. These people were taken from their loved ones, but my dad had chosen to go.

 

Coward.

 

The thought slipped through my mind unbidden. It was so powerful I almost stumbled as I walked, overtaken by this sudden, singular concept: my father was a coward.

 

Never in my entire life had I thought that, but now I burned with the anger that came from the thought.

 

When I finally reached my father’s plot, I almost couldn’t bring myself to stop. I was so angry so suddenly that I wanted to keep on walking by and pretend like he never even existed. How could this man who I’d known all my life have lied to me? And it was a lie, because he had given off this aura of manliness and courage that I had used as the standard by which to measure all men. So many had failed to meet that standard, but, in the end, even my father hadn’t met his own bar.

 

I wasn’t sure what to do with that yet.

 

Almost reluctant about the whole thing, I stepped closer to his grave. My gaze lingered on his headstone, tracing the individual letters that made up the inscription.

 

MARCUS JAMES GILLES

 

“THE PREACHER”

 

LET NO MAN JUDGE YOU.

 

LET YOUR CHOICES BE YOUR OWN.

 

THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY TO DO THE RIGHT THING.

 

The words were poetic and strangely righteous for a man who ran a club full of burly bikers. If you hadn’t known him in life, you would never guess in death that he had been an outlaw of sorts. Granted, he’d been the sort of outlaw that never strayed too far from the line of the law, but he did stray.

 

I wondered briefly as I read the inscription if Dad had chosen it himself or if it had been a collective decision by the members. Maybe it was even Max who’d decided what belonged on the last memory of my father. He’d taken care of everything to do with the funeral, the wake, and anything else that might have been associated with his death. I was in no shape to do it; Mom had been even worse.

 

I stepped closer to the tombstone until I was right in front of it. I wasn’t sure what I was doing until my knees buckled and I slumped into the damp, soft earth. The grass was wet still and seeped into the fabric caught beneath my knees. My shoulders slumped a little and for a moment, I just felt empty.

 

What am I even doing here?

 

I wasn’t sure until I started speaking. “You were my hero, you know?” I told the cold stone, imagining my father sitting in front of me, a half smirk tilted on his face, his eyes sparkling with mischief. The image was so vivid it could have been his ghost propped up on the headstone, watching me. “I never wanted to be you, I wasn’t that stupid, but that didn’t mean I didn’t look up to you. The biker lifestyle wasn’t meant for me, I don’t think. I wasn’t built for it. The strength you always had…I never got any of it. I know everyone thinks I can handle myself, that I don’t need the protection you and Max provided, but I do. I’ve always needed it and now half of that shield is gone.”

 

I sucked a harsh breath of air through my nose, holding it deep in my lungs for damn near a minute, before it slipped back out between my lips. The air was strangely sweet here, like flowers and fresh plants.

 

“Maybe I could have lived with that,” I continued, not sure where I was going with this or what I meant, but feeling the sudden need to get it all off my chest. I needed him to know what was going on inside of me, even if I weren’t quite sure myself. “Maybe I could have even moved past it if things had been different. I don’t know, maybe I’m completely off base when I say this, but I think a car accident would have made me feel better. Cancer. A gunshot. All of those are…are terrible things. They would have broken my heart. But they wouldn’t have left me feeling like I’d never even known you at all.”

 

My voice cracked as I got those last words out. Tears pricked at my eyes as the ache of my bruised heart began to throb in earnest. I’d been trying to avoid it, medicate it with whatever I could find—taking care of my mother, sex with Max, motorcycle rides, throwing myself into work—so it was little more than a dull numbness that was fine so long as I didn’t move the wrong way.

 

Sitting here, talking to my father, that was moving the wrong way.

 

I sucked in a shuddering breath. “I loved you so damn much, and you didn’t even care enough to stay.” My tone had turned accusatory and I was vaguely aware that Becky was standing not far from me and could probably hear everything. I didn’t care. “People here, buried next to you, they had families, too. Families and lives and friends. Things that mattered to them. And they were taken before their time without so much as a say in the matter. But you? You were a coward! How am I supposed to live with that now?”

 

As my words slipped through the air and slowly seesawed down towards the earth to be absorbed, I allowed the silence to fill me. That was something about this place I hadn’t noticed before: how quiet it was. So much quieter than the city and the shop, and even home. Here it was almost peaceful. But it was a lonely kind of peaceful. Not exactly the kind I’d want for the rest of my life.

 

There might have been more to say. There probably was, but I didn’t know what it was and I definitely didn’t know how to get it out. It would just have to settle there again on my chest before I got the strength to stir it back up.

 

I sat there in silence for who knew how long, lost in my own thoughts. Finally, it was a rustling behind me that brought me back to the here and now.

 

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Becky standing behind me just where she’d been when we first arrived. Behind her, though, was a large man with a blubbery middle and a balding head. Thunder. He was coming to pick up Becky since we’d taken my car here and I was only keeping her company—more like the other way around, really—until he got home.

 

Becky noticed my gaze and turned around to see him. I couldn’t see her expression, but heard her gasp and remembered she hadn’t seen him since initiation. “Oh, Thunder!” she exclaimed, her hand partially covering her mouth so the words came out muffled, but there was no mistaking them.

 

I saw, as Thunder moved closer, he was limping slightly and moving very slowly. When he got close enough that his features were visible, I could see his face scrunch up in brief bursts of pain.

 

Becky rushed to him after a few more seconds and embraced him tightly. He winced at this, but wrapped his arms around her anyway. They held each other tightly and I heard whispers pass between them. They were too quiet for me to make out, but they sounded sweet and tender. I decided I didn’t need to know what they were saying. Knowing it was full of comfort and love was enough for me.

 

Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to stand, brushing off my knees. I waited patiently until they broke the embrace.

 

Becky, remembering I was still there, turned back to me, Thunder keeping one arm across her shoulders. She bit her lip. “Are you okay?”

 

I forced a smile that probably was terribly unconvincing, and nodded my head. “Yeah, I’m good. You guys should head home. Take care of him.” I nodded my head towards Thunder.

 

Becky offered me a sympathetic smile, then said, “Thanks. Don’t stay too long, okay?”

 

I agreed, then watched as they walked away, their arms wrapped tightly around one another. It wasn’t until they disappeared completely that I turned back to the tombstone. I didn’t drop back down to my knees this time, and I didn’t say anything else to dad, but his ghost lingered there, watching me. I told myself it was a good thing, but didn’t entirely believe it.

 

I couldn’t figure out if I was still angry with him.

 

I didn’t hear Max, not even when he was standing right behind me. It wasn’t until his arms wrapped around me tightly and he whispered in my ear that I realized he was there.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t have an answer just then. I let him hold me instead and watched until my father’s ghost finally disappeared.

 

# # #

 

Max

 

Lucy looked haunted. It was the only way I knew to describe it. There had been a little bit of that in her since her father died six months ago, but as I held her beside her father’s gravestone, I knew this was more. The things that were eating away at her were worse here and I needed to get her the hell out of here.

 

“C’mon, baby,” I told her gently, still holding onto her. “Let’s go. It’s getting late.”

 

She didn’t say anything, but, after a moment, nodded. She let me lead her away from the plot and back through the sprawling, evergreen cemetery towards the front gates. When we stepped through them back towards the land of the living, I noticed her car again. I knew she’d driven here, but seeing the state she was in now, it bothered me. I looked over at my bike, then back again to her car.

 

Lucy was already pulling away from me and heading towards it, when I reached for her, yanking her back. Her lips tugged down into a frown. She motioned behind her towards the car and said, “I can’t leave it here.”

 

I shook my head. “I’ll have someone pick it up. I just don’t think you should be driving right now.”

 

Lucy looked ready to protest, to tell me I was being a stupid ass or something, and, in all honesty, it would have made me feel better. Maybe if she had actually done that, I’d have let her drive home, because it would have told me she was doing better than I thought.

 

But she didn’t do that. Instead, her shoulders slumped and she nodded, telling me without words I was right. She didn’t need to be driving just then. She handed me the keys and I pocketed them, not wanting to leave them in the car—I wanted it deposited back at the house, not stolen.

 

I escorted her back to my bike and handed her her helmet. She slipped it on and buckled it, but it was more of going through the motions for her than anything else.

 

Bringing the bike to life, I waited for her to slip on it, and when her arms made their way around my waist, I took off, heading for home.

 

The drive was quiet, filled with the silence of a city getting ready to call it a night and the deafening roar of the bike beneath us. The whole ride home, I kept thinking about what had happened that day. Bills, of all people. How was I ever going to trust him again? How was I going to trust any of my men when the one who was supposed to be the most loyal, was suddenly the one I had to be the wariest of?

 

I wanted to tell Lucy what was going on. She was always a level head, and way smarter than anyone would have given her credit for. Her pretty face and her sexy body fooled a lot of guys into thinking she was just some dumb bimbo, but she was smart. And it wasn’t just because she had a head for numbers. She understood things and had a head for problem solving.

 

But that was the old Lucy. I had hope still she’d come back to me, that she wasn’t just lost forever in a well of sorrow, but it was hard to remind myself of that sometimes. There were times when all I wanted to do was throw a fit and tell her to just snap out of it, that her father was dead and he was never coming back. Worse, that he’d chosen to die and it was damn time she chose to live. It was a stupid plan, though, and I knew it. I’d lose her if I ever said anything like that. Besides, his death weighed heavily on everyone. How could I expect it to weigh the least on his own daughter?

 

By the time we arrived home, I made up my mind. I wouldn’t tell Lucy about Bills, not yet. She was in a fragile state and it wasn’t her responsibility to deal with this. It was my job and I had to deal with it.

 

I helped her upstairs, helped her undress, and started the water for her. She took a hot shower and, I’ll admit, I got in with her. My hands roamed her slick body and I kissed at her neck. I caressed her and fondled her and slipped my fingers between her legs until little breaths and moans began to escape her full lips. Maybe it was crass or maybe it was brilliant, but it was the only way I knew how to take her mind off the things that were wearing her down.

 

By the time my cock was hard and pressing into her round, firm backside, she was ready for more. I took her there in the shower, pounding into her from behind as her hands were planted palms down on the tiled wall. She begged and pleaded and cried out my name until I spilled myself inside of her.

 

My fingers took care of what my cock didn’t, and she cried out again when her own release slammed into her. We finished showering, I tucked her into bed, even though it was still a little early. I stroked her damp hair until she fell asleep, wondering if there was any way I could salvage what was happening.

 

I didn’t sleep much that night, but by morning I’d decided what I’d do about Bills. The next time I saw him at the clubhouse, I’d confront him. Whatever was going on, I’d take care of it, one way or another.