Fearless by Lauren Gilley (30)

Thirty-Five

 

“Who in the hell in this place is awake before seven?” Ava asked. She bolted off Mercy’s lap, hands going to the long hem of his t-shirt that she wore and tugging it down on impulse.

              The look he threw toward the door was hateful. His voice was easy when he told her, “The door’s locked, remember? Just calm down.” He made a waving motion toward the bathroom. “Stand over there.” He stood, like an adult unfolding himself from a tiny child’s chair. She would have grinned if her heart hadn’t been knocking at the base of her throat.

              In nothing but his jeans, he opened the door a crack, put on a fierce scowl, and said, “What the fuck?” to whoever waited on the other side. “It’s six in the goddamn morning.”

              Ava pressed her knuckles to her mouth when she recognized her brother’s voice. “There was a fire during the night,” Aidan said. “Sorry the carnage couldn’t wait till you’d grabbed a few more hours’ sleep.”
              She watched Mercy stiffen, his frame tightening. He didn’t get frightened in these sorts of situations, but excited. Kid-on-Christmas excited. “A fire here?”
              “Nah. It’s worse than that.” There was a sound like his knuckles rapping against the doorframe. “Dad’s on his way in. He wants us all at table by seven.”
              Mercy nodded, sighed. “Yeah.”
              “Oh,” Aidan said, voice rising. “Ava, did you think nobody would recognize your truck?”
              She bit the backs of her fingers and felt her face go scarlet. It was an easy thing to say she didn’t care in the dark, behind a locked door, with Mercy’s hands on her. But at dawn, in front of an all-too-knowing audience of his brothers – one of which was her own brother – she didn’t know how to assert herself. She didn’t have a leg to stand on in the daylight.
              “What’re you talking about?” Mercy asked him.
              “Dude, if I didn’t think I’d walk in on my sister naked, I’d come in there and kick your ass.”
              Mercy lunged through the door and Ava heard Aidan’s boots retreating, going down the hall too fast to catch. When Mercy stepped back in, locking the door again, she shook her head. “That’d be my cue to leave.”
              Mercy sighed. “Ava.”
              She grabbed her bag off the desk. “I’m taking a shower.”
              “Ava–”
              “I’ll be fast.”
              And she would be, because their moment, their night, was over, and reality had a bitter taste before sunrise.
 

 

She showered in record time, with Mercy’s harsh Irish Spring soap, too rushed to be amused by the fact that he had a bottle of women’s Herbal Essences on the shelf; she washed her hair with it, and kept hurrying.
              The clothes she’d packed the night before were a long-sleeved black t-shirt, cutoffs, sweatshirt, and the knee-high boots from the night before. She dressed, brushed her teeth, tied her wet hair back in a knot, and managed to smear a layer of gloss across her lips.
              Mercy was waiting, propped against the wall as she stepped out of the bathroom. His expression was unfathomable, determined, if she had to describe it, the eyes soft for her, the jaw set in a hard line. He’d pulled on a shirt and socks. “I’ll walk you out.”

              She breathed a laugh as she walked around him to the desk, grabbed her jacket and stowed it in her bag. “Yeah. Right.”
              “Can you even drive? You had too much to drink.”
              She tossed him an accusatory look: that’s your fault. “I’m fine. I’ll stop for coffee.”
              “Still walking you out.”
              “Why? Why, when Dad’s on his way in, and the world’s on fire, would you insist on that now?”
              “Because things are different now.”
              “Really?” As the dark faded, her sanity returned, Scotch-soaked and painful. “How?”
              “They just are.”
              “And I’m the coerced, seduced child in this situation,” she muttered under her breath. “Sure.”

              “What was that?”

              “I said it’s your funeral.” She lifted her bag – and he took it away from her, slinging the strap over his own shoulder with a look that dared her to argue. “You want to carry my purse, too?”

              He held out a hand for it and she rolled her eyes, pulling it up onto her arm.

              “I thought this whole white knight bit worked for girls,” he said like he was fighting down a laugh.

              “Too late; I’ve already seen your true colors.” She pulled her hood up and put her sunglasses on. “Can we at least go out the back door?”

              “Whatever m’lady wants.”

              She elbowed him in the stomach on her way past.

              Thankfully, the hall was clear. Outside, the sky was barred with gold and salmon, faint indigo shards of night fracturing at the high center point. She could hear bike engines: the crisis was pulling everyone in early.

              Ava zipped up her hoodie, put her head down, and made a beeline for her truck, hoping to escape notice completely. All the guys would find out she’d been there – Aidan never could keep a secret – but she didn’t want to be there when the discussion broke out.

              Mercy’s light touch between her shoulder blades caught her attention; the way he cleared his throat told her something was wrong.

              She lifted her head, and in the dawn gloom, there was Ghost, one arm hooked casually over the driver side mirror of her truck.

              Ava ground to a halt.

              Mercy propelled her forward, hand at her back, and her feet were forced to move; even without trying, he could have pushed her over onto her face, and she didn’t want to add a skinned nose to her morning’s list of problems. Her steps were heavy. She knew her face was stricken, behind the glasses.

              Ghost watched their approach with a flat, unreadable gaze. “You’ve got class today?” he asked as she drew up in front of him.

              She pulled her purse across her body in an unconscious shielding maneuver. She wasn’t afraid of her father, but she didn’t want to hear the yelling. She was never going to understand why, after having been raised by this club, he’d resent her for falling for one of its members.

              “Yes,” she said, and added a “sir” for good measure.

              He nodded. “Prospect,” he called, and Littlejohn appeared from behind the other side of the truck, stocking cap pulled low on his forehead, little curls of chestnut hair licking from beneath the edge. “Ava’s got school today,” Ghost told him.

              “Right. Yes, I knew that, sir.”

              Then his gaze moved up over her head to Mercy. “Chapel in ten,” he said, and shoved away from the truck, heading for the clubhouse front door.

              When he was safely away, Ava whirled. “Did that just happen?”

              Mercy looked satisfied. “I told you, things are different now.”

              “Different how?”

              “You’re not seventeen, for starters.” He reached around her for the door handle. “Where’s your keys? Unlock this.”

              She found the fob in her pocket and the locks disengaged with a muted thump. “He didn’t yell,” she said, amazed. “He didn’t…Dad.”

              Mercy tossed her bag into the backseat and laid a hand on top of her hooded head. “I know. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

              “But…”

              He kissed her. “Go to school. Be safe. Check in with me later.”

              One last bit of protest rallied in her. She didn’t want to allow herself to trust him completely, not like she had the last time around.

              “What if I didn’t break up with Ronnie?” she asked.

              He smiled and tousled her hair through the hood. “Call me.” He whistled at Littlejohn, snapped his fingers, and headed back for the clubhouse.

              “You don’t know that I did!” she called to his back.

              He tossed her a wave over his head. “Yeah, I do.”

              “Son of a bitch,” she muttered. She turned, and saw Littlejohn staring at her. “Oh, like you weren’t thinking it.”

**

 

Stella’s didn’t open until eight, so she stopped in at Leah’s father’s shop, Cook’s Coffee (not-so-creatively named by the owner). She could have run through a drive-through, but by the time she’d pulled off the Dartmoor lot, last night’s drinking was beginning to catch up to her. She needed to sit down for a second, get some coffee in her, see if she could chase away the approaching hypoglycemic attack.

              She parked in one of the slanted spots to the side, and walked in to find Leah frantically popping tops on to-go cups.

              “Oh, gosh.” Leah flipped her pink-streaked ponytail behind her back with a fast head-sling and started slotting the cups into takeout holders. “You must be psychic. I need to talk to you.”

              Ava pulled off her sunglasses and folded them up in her purse. “I need to get some protein in me. Can I come around there?”

              “Please.”

              Behind the counter, Ava pulled a package of peanut butter crackers from her purse and then stowed the bag under the register. She popped a cracker in her mouth as she accepted mugs and directions from Leah, going to the steaming silver bank of brewers along the back wall. She fixed herself a mug of black, forced down the cracker with a few swallows, and said, “What’s up?”

              “Ugh,” Leah said, shoving the coffees she’d prepped into the waiting arms of a customer. “It’s just…well, it’s probably nothing, but I wanted to run it by you since you…” Pointed look over her shoulder. “Have the inside scoop on city stuff.”

              Ava frowned and sipped. “Okay…”

              Leah urged another employee – high-school age dude with shiny pimples – up to her place at the register and moved back to pull drinks with Ava.

              “Two lattes, extra whip, one chai tea, one espresso, two coffees cream and sugar,” the kid called from the register.

              Leah pulled down a mug and said, “This guy came into the shop the other night, right before we closed up. We just had like three people left – coeds working on a project – and I was sweeping. Man in a suit walks up to my dad at the register and starts asking about his lease.”

              “On the shop?” Ava nibbled another cracker and shot whipped cream on top of the lattes.

              “One cup Earl Grey, one green tea with ice,” the kid said.

              Leah nodded. “He seemed friendly, so I thought, maybe he’s got a shop too, and he’s looking for a storefront to rent along the strip, you know? So I kept sweeping. Then I look up, and Dad’s gone totally white. Like that time I fell through the glass coffee table and there was all that blood everywhere.”

              Ava remembered that instance; Leah had come to school the next day striped with neon Band-Aids.

              “What was he saying?” she asked.

              “I kind of swept my way over there…”

              “One cappuccino, one soy latte.”

              “…and the guy said, ‘This is in the city’s best interest. Refusing wouldn’t be smart.’ ”

              Ava felt her brows go up. “Refuse what?”

              “I dunno. Dad wouldn’t say. Just kept telling me not to worry about it. But I should be worried, right?”

              Ava frowned. “Have you seen the guy anywhere else?”

              “Coming out of As A Daisy last week.”

              The flower shop that was suddenly not on friendly terms with the club.

              “Can you mention it to your dad?” Leah asked. There was a glimmer of real fear in her eyes. “I can’t go to the cops; what would I say? There’s some nice-dressed guy talking to my dad? But the Dogs could” – she lowered her voice – “find stuff out.”

              Ava nodded. “I’ll tell him.”

              They lapsed into a necessary silence as they concentrated on filling a lightning round of orders. By the end of it, Ava had managed to choke down half the crackers and all the coffee, but felt no better for it.

              Leah shooed Pimples off the register and took his place in the middle of a slight lull. “What are you doing in so early anyway?” she asked. Her thin brows waggled. “Ronnie keep you out late?”

              “Not Ronnie, no.”

              Leah gasped. “No!”

              Ava pulled her purse from under the counter. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll talk to my dad.”

              “Ava Teague, don’t you walk away!”

              Ava smiled and waved. “Bye.”

              “You’re cruel,” she called as Ava left. “You had sex with someone not your boyfriend, and you deny me details. Cruel!”

              A dozen curious glances cut her way and Ava ducked out the door with her hand in front of her face.

 

 

“At five-fifty-two this morning, dispatch got a call that Milford Mattress was on fire,” Ghost said. He slapped a hot copy of the morning paper down onto the table, the sound echoing off the walls of the chapel. “And guess what the headline is.”

              Gang War in Knoxville it read, in huge print above a photo of the burning mattress store.

              “They’re blaming us,” Ghost said. “To turn the whole city against us.”

              “They so torched the place themselves,” Aidan said, and everyone murmured an agreement.

              “I knew Larsen was reckless,” Collier said, face grim, “but I didn’t think he was this smart.”

              “Smart?” Troy had deemed this an important enough reason to haul his arthritic ass out of bed and ride in to church. “That little shit ain’t smart. He’s got no evidence and nothing to point toward us.”

              Ghost heaved his eyes skyward. “Prosecution isn’t the issue. What this is, is a PR nightmare. We don’t have to have done anything. If the civilians think we have, that’s enough to run us out of business and bring the feds in for a good sniffing-around.”

              Troy waved away the concern. “The club’s survived worse.”              “But it hasn’t thrived through worse,” Ghost said, tone growing harsh. “I don’t have a basement apartment to run back to when shit goes south, gramps. If Dartmoor sinks, I sink with it.” He cast a meaningful glance around the table. They’d all be sinking too, if it came to that.

              “The problem is twofold,” Ratchet said, holding up the appropriate number of fingers. “Reputation repair, and threat elimination.”

              “Mags said someone got to Ramona at the flower shop,” Ghost said. “Made some kinda threat; she doesn’t want to do business with any of us. I’m betting she’s not the only one who’s been visited. If people see that we can’t even damn shop on Main Street, that’s all the more incentive to stop bringing their business here.

              “We’ve got to charm the hell outta this town,” he said, rolling his eyes again.

              “Good thing you’re so charming,” Walsh said, straight-faced, and managed to earn a grin.

              “We’ve gotta be visible,” Ratchet said, “and friendly. We need to do nice things.”

              “Nice things?” Mercy said.

              “Pulling cats outta trees,” Dublin said.

              “Picking up hitchhikers,” Briscoe said.

              “Things out of character for you, Merc,” Ghost said.

              “Hey, I’m nice.”

              “So are rattlesnakes. I want you, Michael, and Rottie working on the ‘threat elimination’ part of things. Hound, you help out where you can, but don’t go getting yourself hurt, old man.”

              Hound made a displeased sound. “ ‘Old man.’ That’s all I am now to you losers.”

              Tango leaned over and put an arm around his narrow shoulders. “Doesn’t mean we don’t love you, though.” He laughed as he was backhanded away.

              “Alright.” Ghost made a settle down gesture. “Ratchet, what can we do charity-wise right now?”

              As the secretary went down the list, Mercy let his mind wander. He shouldn’t – church was never anything to blow off – but since he’d been delegated to the kill squad, he didn’t much care how many hours everyone else was going to clock at the old folks’ home. He reflected on the moment beside Ava’s truck, and the lecture he hadn’t received.             

              Had Ghost finally come around? he wondered. If he had, then something told him Maggie had had a lot to do with it. How was that for incredible? The mother of the little girl giving him the green light. No, not just that: encouraging him. Maggie wasn’t normal, and for that, he was grateful.

              “…like last time,” Michael was saying with a frown as Mercy refocused.

              Ghost sighed. “That could have happened to any of the three of you. Let’s just call off the pissing contest, alright?”

              Mercy shot a shit-eating grin across the foot of the table at Michael. “Oh, I dunno, boss. If Mikey wants to measure stuff…”

              “Hey,” Ghost said, “don’t make me think about your dick any more than I absolutely have to.”

              Aidan and Tango erupted in spontaneous laughter, and the rest of the table joined them, all save Michael.

              Mercy felt the heat in his face and ducked his head over the table. “Yeah. Okay.”

              “Michael,” Ghost said as the laughing died down, “Mercy is one of this club’s best guys. He’s the only extractor we’ve ever had. Learn to work together, because I need you both on this assignment. Understand?”

              Michael nodded and glanced down at his hands.

              Mercy felt the compliment all the way down to his toes. Yeah, things were different. Tides were shifting, grudges washing away.

              “We have to be a united front,” Ghost continued. “This isn’t like anything we’ve faced before. This isn’t just club against club; this is club against club, town, mayor, PD. This is about the future of the Lean Dogs, boys. Let’s make sure there actually is a future.”

 

 

When church was dismissed, as the boys were filing out, Ghost snagged his VP with a snap of his fingers. “Collier. You got a sec?”

              “Sure.”

              Ghost thought the vice president had a nervous set to his chin as his eyes followed their departing brothers. Hmm. Ghost propped a hip against the side of the table, very casual and unofficial, and lit a smoke, gave off the impression of being comfortable and unworried.

              Collier put his hands back on the table and leaned against it, between two chairs, head facing the doors, eyes flicking over to Ghost. There was a tension in him, one he kept well-hidden, but one out of character for him. It had been there for days. Ghost had written it off as grief.

              “What’s up?”

              Ghost tapped ash in one of the heavy crystal trays on the table. “Just wanted to make sure you were doing okay. What with everything.”

              Collier snorted, one corner of his mouth lifting in a humorless smile. “Everything’s kinda going to shit, isn’t it? We can handle it, though.”

              “Yeah.” Ghost took a long drag and let the smoke out through his nostrils. “But that’s not what I meant.”

              Again, Collier’s eyes shifted over, quick, furtive. “You mean about Andre?”

              “I know you cared about him. Our prospects start to feel like our sons.”

              Collier snorted. “One of your prospects was your son.”

              “True.” He’d only ever sponsored two – he wasn’t big on the mentoring – and that had been Aidan and Tango, both together when they’d prospected at sixteen. That hadn’t been much different than parenting. “But still.”

              “Still,” Collier echoed, heaving a deep breath. “I’m alright. Guess I shoulda been expecting something to happen, given his habits.”

              Ghost made an agreeing sound.

              “I just wanna focus on dealing with the Carps right now,” Collier said, pushing away from the table. He looked older than he had a week ago, more stoop-shouldered and less vital. “Andre’s buried and the girls took up a collection for his kids. There’s nothing else I can do for him now.” He turned to face Ghost fully, guilt pressed deep in the lines of his face. “Right?”

              Guilt could kill a man. Guilt over not having done enough. Guilt over missing signs.

              And they couldn’t afford for any member to be distracted by something as acidic as that.

              So Ghost said, “Right,” and clapped his old friend on the shoulder.

 

 

Ava’s hangover settled in during her second class of the day, the sweeping nausea, the crippling headache, the exhaustion, the god-awful loudness of every whispered voice and jostled backpack, pushed-back chair. She put her head down on the table at some point in the middle of the lecture; she didn’t mean to, it was just that the faux-wood grain of the table kept getting closer, closer, closer…Oh, what the hell. She’d just shut her eyes for a minute. Maybe then she’d stop feeling so sick.

              “Miss Teague!”

              She snapped to attention, head jerking back on her neck, nausea threatening to overtake her, temples pounding. The room swam and refused to come into focus for a second, then her professor, the formidable Miss Coleridge, solidified into a solitary tweed-clad figure. 

              “Miss Teague, am I boring you?”

              Ava pushed herself up on her elbows and heard someone behind her squelch a laugh. There were eleven of them in this class. In those big undergrad auditorium classrooms, one sleeping student was easily missed. But with just eleven, she was a disruption.

              “No, ma’am,” she said, dashing at her cloudy eyes with the back of her hand. Oh God, she was going to be sick. “I’m fine. Just…not feeling well, is all.”

              Miss Coleridge harrumphed. “I take it your condition has nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with staying up late to go over my syllabus.”

              Ava flicked her a bare smile. “Of course.”

              Miss Coleridge gave her a stern look – weren’t grad professors supposed to be more laid back than this? – then resumed her seat on the front of her desk and picked up her MLA manual again. Professional Report Writing: a dry class by normal standards; throw in all the Johnnie Walker she’d consumed, and Ava was ready to take a nap with her head in the wastebasket.

              She checked her phone, where it rested on her thigh beneath the table, in an effort to distract herself from the crushing nausea.

              One text message from Ronnie: Can we talk? Call me.

              No, she wanted to type back. No we can’t. You insulted me in every way possible, and I don’t want to talk to you ever, about anything.

              She clicked the screen to black and forced her head up, stomach rolling. She just wouldn’t respond, she decided. What would she tell him anyway? That she’d spent an entire night with someone who wasn’t him?

              She was surprised to feel a twinge of disappointment. She didn’t want to stay with Ronnie – no, not after last night – but she’d never pictured herself a cheater, someone who lied and two-timed. She’d never thought bringing Ronnie home with her would lead to all this. Or that she was so weak-willed as to be sucked back into Mercy’s trap again.

              She didn’t want to think it was a trap; it didn’t feel like one. He’d been too raw, too hurt, too honest with her last night for it to feel like manipulation.

              But then again, he refused to give her the answers she needed.

              And Ronnie wanted to talk.

              And the Carpathians wanted blood.

              And she wanted to throw up.

              With a sigh, she fixed her gaze on Miss Coleridge and picked up her pen again. Back to the new MLA rules. When in doubt, always turn to writing. The world could be explained away as the ink rolled off the tip of a pen.

 

 

Ghost had been pawing around on her desk again. The orderly cup of pens had been spilled; pens and pencils had rolled everywhere. The stapler was on the floor. The tidy stacks of invoices on her blotter had been pushed around, stacked again loosely and out of order.

              “Military precision my ass,” she muttered, plucking up the paperclips from the tipped-over plastic bin that held them. It looked like a whole herd of cattle had run across the desk, disturbing everything, even if just by a hair.

              So distracted, she didn’t hear the footfalls approach the open central office door and was surprised to hear someone say, “Maggie?”

              When she glanced up, her pasta breakfast turned to lead in her gut. In the open threshold, framed by morning sunlight, stood Olivia Donaldson, Ghost’s ex-wife.

              The sight of the woman always sent her into a full-tilt rage, but she said, “Liv,” coolly, without interest or emotion, and continued to sort her desk, only half-watching. “What’s the matter? Civilian life get too boring? You needed a taste of what you left behind?”

              Olivia folded her arms. “Hardly. I’m here because Kenny called me and asked for a favor.”

              Kenny. The sound of his name on Olivia’s tongue made her absolutely murderous. It wasn’t rational – at least, not mostly – her hatred of this woman, but that didn’t mean she could control the rage that bubbled up inside her.

              “Oh, honey.” Maggie gave her the worst grin she could conjure. “I’m handing out more favors than you ever did.”

              Snort. “I’m sure. But not that kind of favor. The club wants to help with a charity fundraiser.” Little shrug. “I said I could come by and talk options with you. But if that won’t work…” Small lift to her plucked brows, to make Maggie feel petty and small.

              Maggie took a deep breath, scraped together all her composure, and nodded, gesturing to the chair across the desk.

              Ghost’s ex settled into it and smoothed her hands down the legs of her slacks, smoothing away each and every tiny wrinkle. Spotless as always, she plucked invisible lint from her blazer and flicked it away into an incoming sunbeam.

              Born Olivia Stacey, she’d become Olivia Teague at eighteen, when she’d married her high school sweetheart Ghost. She’d lasted only a few years, pulling back as Ghost entrenched himself deeper and deeper into his uncle’s club. She’d given birth to Aidan, promptly dumped him into Ghost’s lap – “He’ll end up just like you, and I can’t handle that,” she’d said, according to Ghost – and run off. She’d been gone almost a year before she returned to Knoxville married to an investment banker with deep ties to the University. She’d started a new family, the family she’d always wanted. She and her husband had three children, an all-brick two-story in Alcoa, white picket fence, champagne-colored crossover SUVs, and everything else on the suburban checklist. She’d made only the most minimal efforts with Aidan through the years, believing him to be a lost cause.

              She was fifty, Ghost’s age, and though the years had not been kind, she dressed immaculately in all designer labels, and wore her hair in a sleek short cut that could have looked mannish if she hadn’t styled it just so and accessorized with flashy, feminine earrings. Her makeup was expert, her lipstick a tasteful mauve.

              Aidan looked nothing like her, for which Maggie had always been grateful.

              “You know my boys,” Maggie said, “always trying to help the community.”

              Olivia’s lips pursed in graceful distaste. “Yes. They’re pillars, really.” She had a briefcase and drew a file folder from inside it. “Kenny said he wanted to do something visible, boost the goodwill of the club. There’s really only one event that’s suitable.” She opened the folder and set it on the desk, turned so Maggie could read the fliers. “The KHS Yard Sale.”

              Maggie scanned the paperwork, brows lifting. “A yard sale? Not exactly high profile.”

              “This one is.” One manicured French-tipped nail tapped at the top line of the flier where it read Tenth Annual. “This function has been running for ten years, and in that time, has earned over two-hundred thousand dollars for the children’s hospital. The money goes to research childhood cancer, fund special activities for the children, provide medical care of families in financial need. It’s a very worthwhile cause, and it’s coming up soon. Next week. It’s held at the high school, hence the name.”

              Maggie sat back in her chair. “Hence the name,” she echoed, with no small amount of mockery.

              Olivia made a noise in the back of her throat. “Hate me all you want, Maggie, but you don’t have the connections to make this happen. I do.”

              And didn’t that just suck? Olivia was involved in all things city-related: the Ladies’ Luncheon Club, the Historical and Garden Committees, in addition to organizing and requesting permits for almost all the charitable events. She was part of a board, the name of which Maggie never could keep straight. Ruling at her husband’s side within the MC had never been good enough for Olivia; but now, in her pantsuit and gold earrings, she was queen of a castle she could be proud of.

              Maggie seethed inwardly. Outwardly, she smiled. “ ‘Hate.’ Now there’s an awful strong word to use for someone I don’t give a damn about.”

              Olivia gave her a frosty, scant half-smile in return. “Sign here and here” – she indicated on the sign-up sheet – “and I’ll need an estimate of the amount of junk you’ll be bringing to sell.”

              “Junk?”

              “It’s a yard sale, after all. Setup begins at seven sharp. Tents will not be provided. The signs will direct you where to go in the parking lot at the school. Any questions?”

              “Just one.” Maggie held up a finger. “Are you actually going to say ‘hello’ to your son this time?”

              Olivia gathered the folder up, slipped it back in her case with fast, practiced movements, and tugged her blazer into place as she stood. “I’ll call you to confirm in a few days.”

              “He grew up handsome,” Maggie called to her back. “Looks just like his daddy.”

              Olivia paused.

              “Then again, that’d be why you can’t stand the sight of him, huh?”

              She left without looking back, sliding her sunglasses into place.

              “Bitch,” Maggie said to the empty office.

 

 

Ava had only two classes to attend that day, thank God, and when she came squinting and grimacing from Miss Coleridge’s class, Littlejohn was waiting for her propped against the building with a twenty-ounce Coke, greasy hamburger from the student center, and a travel packet of aspirin.

              “Oh, I love you,” she said, collapsing onto the bench beside him.

              He handed her the Coke first, then the aspirin. She swallowed them down and sipped slowly at the soda, pressing the cool bottle to her forehead. She felt almost feverish.

              Students passed in lazy droves, voices overlapping, the occasional giggle or exclamation cutting above the dull chattering. The sun was beaming and a breeze was scooping up handfuls of premature fallen leaves and tossing them against the brick sides of buildings. It smelled like cut grass and that faint, ever-present tang of the Tennessee River. Picturesque on-campus day, orange everywhere, football excitement rippling through the students in waves.

              Ava unwrapped the burger and took a tentative bite, finding that her urge to gag lessened as she chewed.

              “They had mac & cheese,” Littlejohn said. “That’s what gets me through a hangover, but I didn’t know what your food was, so I just went for the meat.”

              “Meat is good.” She waved the burger at him before she risked another bite. “You guessed right.”

              He nodded, a pleased smile crossing his boyish face.

              Another bite quelled the churning in her stomach and she washed it down with more Coke. If she worked slow enough, and sat here long enough, she might be able to eat the whole thing.

              Her phone chimed with a text alert, and she frowned when she read it, holding the phone in one hand, burger in the other. It was Ronnie again: Ava, I really want to talk to you. Please call me.

              “Boyfriend?” Littlejohn guessed.

              She gave him the side-eye.

              “You just made this face,” he explained, “and considering last night, I’m guessing the person you want to hear from least right now is your boyfriend.”

              She turned the side-eye into a flat, forward look that her mom would have been proud of. “So many lines crossed, prospect. So many.”

              He pressed his lips together and his face began to redden in an expression she was beginning to read as oh damn I got in trouble again.

              “But anyway,” she continued, “he’s not my boyfriend anymore. I broke up with him.” Mostly, she added to herself.

              “Bet Mercy was glad to hear that.”

              She laughed. “You really don’t stay on your side of the boundaries, do you?”

              “Isn’t that kind of the point of being an outlaw?”

              She laughed again, took another bite of her burger, licked ketchup off her thumb. “Yeah, I guess,” she said as she swallowed. “Gimme five more minutes and I’ll be in driving shape.”

              She ate three-quarters of the burger and drank half the Coke. She needed water, more than anything, but this quick fix had perked her up. She pointed out buildings to Littlejohn as they walked to the truck, because he seemed interested in knowing more about the school. He confided, as they passed the library, that he’d always wanted to go to college. “You could take night classes,” she offered, but they both knew that he’d signed away that possibility the day he’d prospected with the Lean Dogs.

              Her headache flared back up full-force when they reached her truck and she saw that the left rear tire was flat.

              “Shit.”

              Littlejohn crawled up under the bed to get down her spare, but crawled back out and declared it to be flat too, undercarriage dust clinging to the ends of his hair.

              Ava chewed at the inside of her lip and stared at the flat a long time, a tingling sensation prickling up and down the back of her neck. It was a normal, everyday occurrence, a flat tire. Inconvenient as shit, commonplace as hell.

              But there’d been nothing commonplace about her rearing, and so she found reasons to suspect foul play where no other girl would have. Had this happened at UGA, she would have brushed it off. Happening here, given the state of club relations, she felt the uneasiness steal over her.

              “I’ll call your dad,” Littlejohn said, pulling out his phone. “Or Mercy, maybe? Let them know what’s up.”

              She shook her head vigorously and then regretted it. Holding her temples, she said, “Call the auto garage. Dublin’s running it; get him and one of his guys to come out with the flatbed. Trust me: neither of us wants Dad or Mercy making a big show of this in the middle of campus.”

              He hesitated a moment.

              “Just do it, prospect.”

              He nodded and dialed.

 

 

The Moorland Auto flatbed pulled in fifteen minutes later, Dublin behind the wheel, Walsh riding shotgun.

              “Sir, are you sure you’re a mechanic?” Ava asked him with a grin as he walked around the back of the truck.

              “I’m certified to do a lot of things; I choose to do one,” he replied in what amounted to a snarky comeback in Walshworld. He drew up beside her and bumped her shoulder with his in greeting. “Dublin said someone slashed your tires?” Little lift of his pale brows.

              “It’s just flat. I don’t know about the slashing part.”

              “We’ll see,” Dublin said, getting down on his knees beside the tire. “Prospect, grab me the jack off the truck.”

              Dublin – gone paunchy as he aged, hair thinning on the sides these days – had not a drop of Irish blood in him, but had played for Notre Dame for one year before a broken collarbone had sidelined him long enough to strip him of his scholarship. After a series of odd jobs, a couple of bad turns, he’d found himself in Tennessee, offering to work part time for the Dogs. He’d been a hangaround, then a prospect, then a member, and the club had been the central figure in his life for the past twenty years.

              “You didn’t call your man?” Walsh asked as he and Ava stood back against the flatbed and watched Dublin and Littlejohn wrestle the tire.

              Ava didn’t fall into the trap. She shot him a rueful grin. “You thought you’d just slip that one past me?”

              He shrugged. “Worth a shot.”

              Ava studied his profile; he had only faint lines on his face. His constant lack of expression had prevented the deep grooves that age always brought, the laugh and frown lines, the roadmaps of emotion. Maybe he was a vampire. At the very least immortal. “You think I’m stupid, don’t you?” she asked, quietly.

              His face didn’t change. “No. I think, the way you grew up, you never had a prayer.”

              She shivered.

              “Look at this,” Dublin said, drawing her attention. He’d found a clean slice in the rubber. “Slashed,” he said, looking first at her, and then at Walsh.

              She shivered again, clasping her arms across her middle this time.

              “We’ll have to tell Ghost,” Dublin said, tone gentle, like he knew she didn’t want that. “He needs to know.”

              She nodded, and pulled her phone from her sweatshirt pocket as it started to ring.

              It was Ronnie, and she almost stowed it away again. But if he was going to be this persistent, she’d have to deal with him at some point. She put her back to the men and walked a few steps away, around the front of the neighboring car.

              Her voice felt heavy in her throat as she answered. “Hello?”

              There was a beat of silence, then: “You didn’t answer my texts.”

              “Yes. That’s called ‘ignoring’ when people do that. I’m ignoring you, Ronnie.”

              “Don’t be like that.”

              She felt too bad to take hold of any patience. “That’s a running theme with you, isn’t it? Always worried about how I’m behaving. ‘Don’t be like that.’ You’ve been saying that since the moment we got to Knoxville.”

              “Ava–”

              “Shut up. You got to say your piece yesterday, well here’s mine. You’ve made it perfectly clear that your affection is conditional. And you can’t love me unless I behave a certain way. Unless I am a certain thing. Well I can’t love someone who has those sorts of expectations. I’m looking for a man, Ronnie, not a country club invite or arm candy or someone to challenge me. I want to get married; I want children. I want a quiet, happy life, and I don’t want to be given those things on your terms.”

              She sucked in a deep breath, shocked at her own admission, shocked that he hadn’t interrupted. It had all come pouring out, before she could collect the scattered bits: she did want a family, a home that she’d built for it. She wanted all the stable things that made life in the club livable.

              “Are you at the school?” he finally asked over the heaving of her breath. “I’ll come by and see you. We can work things out.”

              “Yesterday, you were done with me, and now you want to ‘work things out,’ ” she said. “It doesn’t work that way.”

              “I just…” He sighed. “Will you give me a chance to explain myself?”

              “You did that yesterday.”

              “No, but–”

              “Shut up,” she repeated. It was a sigh, an exhausted breath. She tipped her head back and let the sun pour over her face, warm her skin. “You’re trying to save a sinking ship. I’m sorry I dragged you up here, I really am. But there’s nothing left for us to hold onto. We’re done, Ronnie. You had it right yesterday.”

              When he didn’t respond, she disconnected.

              Back at the truck, there was a new rear tire in place and Dublin was taking the Ford down off the jack. “The spare was slashed too,” he informed her. “Someone wanted to keep you put.”

              “Or just screw up my day,” she said. “Either way, thanks for coming to save me.”

              “No sweat, sweetheart.” He secured the two flats to the back of the garage truck with a length of chain. “You better follow us back to the shop, though, and I’ll set you up with a new spare.”

              She smiled thinly. “And because my dad won’t believe I’m okay until he lays eyes on me?”

              “Yep, that too.”

 

 

When they arrived at Dartmoor, Ava left her truck at Moorland for Dublin’s boys to fit with a new spare tire, and she walked down to the central office, enjoying the sun on her skin, the breeze against her face. She still felt hungover, so she sipped the last half of her Coke and let the soft currents of river air soothe her pounding head.

              The door to the office was propped wide with a loose cinderblock, as was always the case on pretty afternoons, and Maggie was glued to the computer, fingers clacking across the keys.

              “Hi,” Ava greeted, dropping into the chair across from the desk. She hooked her legs over the arm and let her head fall back.

              “Hi, sweetie,” Maggie said, frowning at the computer screen. “How was your day?”

              “Aside from the slashed tires, not too bad.”

              That got her attention. Maggie’s head snapped up, hazel eyes bugging. “Excuse me?”

              Ava recounted the tire story, thinking all the while that it had been a smart call to leave Ghost out of things thus far. He would have been demanding to see security tapes at the school, pounding on the dean’s office door.

              Maggie was almost as bad. “We need to see those tapes,” she said, the moment Ava stopped talking.

              “Mom, we can’t do that.”

              “Oh yes we can. You call up the UT police and you tell them someone slashed your tires and that you want to see the footage. College campuses don’t like that shit going on. You should have filed an incident report the second you saw it.”

              “And told them what?” she asked, disbelieving. “That rival bikers rode onto campus? Are we so desperate we’re going to sic UTPD on them?”

              Maggie frowned. “I don’t like it. Schools are supposed to be safe. And,” she added, “if we turned this into a school issue” – she twirled a finger through the air – “then it stops being a gang war and starts being a case of the Carpathians terrorizing civilians. Stephens looks bad, the cops crack down, the Dogs aren’t Public Enemy Number One anymore.”

              Ava grinned reluctantly. “Always working an angle, huh?”

              “An angle that keeps you safe!”

              “I’m fine, Mom.”

              “This time!”

              Ava made a calm down gesture and earned the mother stink-eye for it.

              “I’m half-convinced Dad did it himself,” Ava said. “Trying to keep me at school and away from…here.”

              Maggie sat back with a satisfied smile. “I think your dad’s about to come to terms with here. He’s starting to put things in perspective.”

              “I’m guessing he had a little help with that.”

              “He might have.”

              Ava felt a flutter in her chest, something akin to hope that frightened and thrilled her. She hadn’t hoped for anything in five years. “Thanks, Mom,” she said, meaning it.

              Maggie shrugged. “It’s the least I can do after getting your arch nemesis to write your recommendation letter.”

              “Nothing like convincing my dad to accept my thirty-five-year-old as a fix for deceit.”

              They locked eyes.

              They burst into deranged giggles.

              They laughed until Ava’s ribs ached. “God, Mom,” she gasped as she caught her breath. “How did life get so messed up?”

              Maggie dabbed at the corners of her eyes and exhaled, quieting, gathering her composure. “Baby, it’s not messed up,” she said with a reassuring smile. “Just a little bumpy.”

              Ava let her head fall back against the chair. “I don’t think I’m supposed to want to be back home.”

              Maggie’s lips pursed, telling her what she thought of that New Age sentiment. “But do you?”

              Ava nodded. “So much.”

              Maggie nodded.

              “I’m the first loser to ever leave college the exact same person who went into it.”

              Maggie grinned. “Whoever said that was a bad thing?”

              The clip of high heels alerted them to someone’s approach. Bonita brought the smell of bottled jasmine into the office with her, the perfume lifting off her cotton dress and black cardigan. She was in all black, her spike-heel above-the-knee boots gleaming in the sunlight, the big square frames of her sunglasses setting her face off in elegant contrast.

              “Girls,” she said brightly, in her beautiful, accented English. “I didn’t think I’d find you both here. Buenas tardes.”

              “Buenas tardes,”Ava and Maggie echoed.

              Maggie said, grinning, “You’re awful dressed up.”

              “I was supposed to have lunch with Carol” – James’s sister, who Bonita would rather die than risk offending with anything less than obvious style – “and we were going to have our hair done, but Stephanie at the salon, she turned me away! Can you believe that?” She crossed in front of Ava and settled into the other extra chair, hands clasped on one leather-covered knee. “Ten years I go there to have my hair styled, and she can’t take me anymore. I’m not on the client list, she says, and she has to cut back on her customers because of her back.”

              Maggie snorted. “The only thing wrong with her back is that it spends too much time against too many different mattresses. She turned you away because of the Dogs.”

              “What?”

              Maggie recounted her trip to the florist shop, and Ramona’s strange reception of her and Jackie. Ava chimed in with her morning’s account of Cook’s Coffee, the suited man who’d been harassing Leah’s father.

              “Dios mio,” Bonita said.

              “Someone’s going around to each and every shop owner leasing storefront space, and threatening them somehow. Turn the Dogs away, or else,” Maggie said.

              Bonita rolled her eyes. “Crazy, that’s what it is. Who in this town believes the Dogs are bad? No one. We get respect.” She lifted her nose, purposefully haughty. “All my time here, I go into a shop, and it is ‘What can I get you, Mrs. James?’ ‘How can I help you?’ ‘How is your husband?’ And now?” She leveled a look on Maggie that no one would have suspected her capable of, given her usual bright laughter and warm obliviousness. “What is happening, Maggie? Why is this happening now, when my James steps down?”

              The old queen questioning the ruling power of the new royal family.

              Maggie managed to keep her frown graceful. “It’s not about James versus Ghost as president. Any change in leadership is seen as a transitional period, a weak place. The Carpathians wanted to strike while things were disorganized.”

              “And are we disorganized?” Bonita wanted to know, tone innocent, gaze anything but.

              Ava shrank back in her chair a fraction.

              “No,” Maggie said, firmly. Ava knew what her mother was thinking: that if anything, James had been the lax president, reactionary rather than proactive, worried about parties instead of predatory rivals. “Ghost has it under control.”

              “I hope so. I can’t go weeks and weeks without my salon trip,” Bonita said, giving her heavy mane a shake to demonstrate.

              Maggie offered a tight smile. “The boys will get it sorted. Knoxville works better with the Dogs around; they just need to be reminded of that.”

              “Reminded of what?” a deep, masculine voice asked from the door. A shadow swelled, blocking the incoming sunlight, and Ava felt her stomach leap the same moment Maggie smiled.

              “Reminded that you Dogs are all up to date on your rabies shots,” Maggie said.

              Mercy folded his arms across his chest and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. He wore a black and blue flannel shirt with the sleeves folded back under his cut. The breeze rushed in around him and Ava thought she smelled lavender. “Got my tag and everything,” he told Maggie, returning her grin; then he swiveled his head and lost all humor as his eyes came to land on Ava. “You didn’t call.”

              Oh, so they were going to play that game. In front of her mother, and Bonita, for Godsakes, he was going to get her with the old my old lady shoulda checked in routine. Well, news flash to him: one “I love you” in the middle of a Scotch-soaked night in bed together didn’t mean she was his anything.

              “I forgot,” she said, shrugging, because what with feeling like shit and dealing with her truck, she truly had.

              Mercy’s black brows pulled low over his eyes. “Someone slashed your tires, and you didn’t call me.”

              She opened her mouth to respond, and then held her breath a second. This wasn’t just a game, she realized, but something more subtle and significant than that. He was doing this in front of her mother and Bonita – two MC queens – on purpose. Things were different, he’d told her, and apparently he’d meant it, because he was asserting himself as her man, openly, stepping up in the true one-percenter sense, taking her into his care and asking for her recognition, her cooperation.

              He was going to have to be more official than that, though, because in the eyes of these two queens, she had her own one-percenter standards to meet. And she wanted to meet them, didn’t she? Didn’t she want to be his old lady, part of this sacred circle of women, one of the beloved few?

              Yes. God yes.

              She said, “Obviously, you talked to Dublin. So you know I had all the help and protection I needed.”

              His expression became a scowl, one she found hilarious and adorable. “You should have called me,” he insisted.

              “Mmkay. I’ll think about it next time.” And she turned away from him deliberately, not missing her mom’s small, pleased smile.

              She felt Mercy’s stare a long moment. He said something in French that sounded like both a grudging compliment and a curse, and left the office with a sharp rap of his knuckles against the doorframe.

              Their tension forgotten for the moment, Maggie and Bonita exchanged a look.

              Bonita laughed. “Little bambina, all grown up.”

              “And giving ‘em hell,” Maggie said, grinning broadly.

              Ava slipped deeper into her chair, blushing.

 

 

Brat. At some point in the last five years, Ava had grown herself a sturdier backbone. There was a coldness in her now, down deep under her skin, one that he’d created, if he was honest. He didn’t like it. He wanted his adoring, worshipful girl back. Instead, he had this mostly-grown little woman who could spend all night clawing him up and then turn him away the next morning. It pissed him off; it was hot as hell. And it was just a phase, he was convinced. He had some making up for lost time to do, but then she’d come back around.

              Halfway to the clubhouse, he ran across Michael’s statue-still frame throwing a long shadow across the asphalt. He drew up to a halt beside him, only a little curious what had stopped the man in his tracks this time.

              Without being asked, Michael gestured toward the clubhouse portico.

              In its shade, Ghost stood with Fielding, his posture more threatening than defensive. “…no one in the world is as stupid as they’re claiming I am,” Ghost was saying, one hand on his hip, the other gesticulating aggressively.

              “You know what it looks like,” Fielding said, voice patient. “I have to enquire…”

              “And there’s that,” Michael said, pointing across the lot toward the perimeter fence, and Industrial Road. A small knot of people holding signs were pacing back and forth along the fence. Mercy caught the words No More and felt a heaviness in his gut.

              “Protesters?”

              Michael nodded.

              “People bothered to make signs and come protest us? Jesus Christ, get a life.”

              “They could be plants,” Michael said. “Either way: bad press.”

              Mercy sighed. “When are you and me going hunting?” He didn’t relish the idea, but he wanted to do something. Sitting around was lethal for him.

              “Dunno. When the boss tells us,” Michael said, voice laced with patience.

              Fielding walked out from under the portico, shaking his head, and Ghost came toward them, face a thunderhead.

              “Motherfucker,” he said when he was in earshot, not to either of them specifically, just to vent. “I give it three days,” he said, “before we’ve got every soccer mom in the county camped out on our street.”             

              “So push back. Get the Lean Bitches out washing cars in bikinis,” Mercy suggested. “Soccer moms won’t stand around and watch that.”

              Ghost shook his head, frowning toward the small gathering of protesters. “I figured things would get worse ‘fore they got better. But this? I can’t fight the city.” He rubbed the back of his neck, exhaustion taking hold of his face, making it look drawn and lined. “I don’t have the resources for that.”

              Michael spoke up, his voice almost soothing, though businesslike as always. It surprised Mercy, to hear him offer something like consolation to their president – to anyone. “We have the charity event next week. That’ll help. And we’ll handle the Carpathians.”

              “Speaking of which,” Mercy said. “Where do you want us, boss? What can we do?”

              Ghost sent him a stern look. “You can take my girls home for me. That’s what I need right now.”

              Maybe it shouldn’t have - just like old times, after all – but the order surprised him. “Me?”

              Ghost smirked. “Did I stutter? Yeah, you. Littlejohn does a good job, but I take it you’re more invested.”

              “True.”

              “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay that way.”

              Mercy grinned. “Do I smell a shotgun wedding? I’ve wanted to call you Daddy for so long now.”

              “Fuck you,” Ghost said, turning. “And stay with them till I get there.”

 

 

At first, she thought it was a ploy, Mercy coming back into the office, all official and removed, telling them that it was time to go home for the day, and that he’d escort them. Sure, she thought. But your plan sucks. Just you and me alone in the house together…with my mom.

              But then she saw the protesters. She counted about ten, as they were driving out, and a minivan parked on the shoulder was letting off more. All held double-sided poster-board signs on sticks. Ava was able to read the marker-drawn message on one: Send the Gang to Gangland. This Is Not California. As they passed, she read another: Knoxville Moms Against Violence. Send the Dogs to the Pound.

              Her hands grew clammy on the wheel. She checked her rearview and saw Mercy on his Dyna close behind her, and the sight of him quelled the leaping pulse in her stomach.

              As she followed her mom’s Caddy through the heart of the city, past the Main and Market shops and restaurants, she saw the heads turn their way, eyes and ears drawn by the black bike and the man flying Dogs’ colors. So many of the proprietors knew Maggie’s black Cadillac, and probably Ava’s black truck. She saw the expressions on the faces: curiosity, doubt, fright, even hostility.

              A sign, in the window of As A Daisy: Knoxville Moms Against Violence.

              The red ribbons, tied on lampposts. Weren’t those usually a part of Red Ribbon Week at the school? The anti-drug campaign.

              And there, up high on a billboard as they turned at the next light, Mayor Mason Stephens’ face looming large above them, the caption promising to make the city a safer, more prosperous place to live.

              The city was turning against them. It was starting slow, but like a cancer, it would spread and spread, and then consume.

              Ava was shaking by the time they pulled up at the house. She sat for a long moment after she’d killed the engine, rubbing the backs of her arms, staring at the closed garage doors, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with temperature.

              She jumped when someone rapped on her window, then scolded herself when she saw that it was Mercy, and climbed out.

              “Where did those people come from?” she asked. “The protesters.”

              He was in protection mode, scanning the street, the house, the yard, eyes scouring the shrubs for hidden boogeymen, hands hovering down low, ready to grab for his knife, or the Colt semi-auto he kept in his waistband, hidden by his cut.

              “Doesn’t much matter,” he said, eyes touching her briefly before he continued his scan. “The mayor coulda trucked ‘em in, for all we know. It’s a threat either way.”

              Maggie walked around the front of the truck and joined them, snorting in delicate disagreement and flipping her hair over the collar of her denim jacket. “If the day ever comes when I’m afraid of Suzie Homemaker coming at me with a sign, it must be Armageddon.”

              One corner of Mercy’s mouth lifted in a faint smile. “Yeah. But a crowd of Suzies with signs would make good cover for some dude with a gun.”

              The insinuation fell over Ava like ice water; she watched it do the same to her mother, Maggie’s eyes widening.

              “Oh.”

              “That’s what I’m here for,” he said in the old, reassuring way of years past. Not the calculating lover, but the stoic, good-natured guard and companion. So many nights, when she was a girl, they’d eaten dinner, the three of them, waiting for Ghost, Mercy admitting that he didn’t follow football and asking Ava about the novels she was reading for school, and for fun.

              He gestured up the sidewalk. “Ladies first.”

              Inside, Ava went straight to her room, unsure how she felt about Mercy’s presence here again, after all this time. Last night had changed certain aspects of this new relationship they’d tumbled into, but there were still roadblocks she had to navigate. The kitchen of this house was the place where he’d first kissed her. Her bed, where she tossed her hoodie, was where he’d laid her down the first time. To have him here, to have her parents know, to be older, to be repeating the same mistakes, to be thrilled by the feel of it…it was all a tangle. And she felt terrible about what she’d done to Ronnie. He’d never asked for this, for her ugly compass heart spinning toward a north she couldn’t trust.

              She changed into black leggings and a long, flowing white t-shirt, went barefoot back down the hall, and found Mercy on the couch with a beer, Maggie visible through the doorway into the kitchen, setting out packets of chicken to defrost.

              She lingered partway through the room, beside the arm of the couch. She ought to go help her mother with dinner (or hinder, depending on how she looked at her inadequate cooking abilities). But she wanted to sit down beside Mercy, lean into his side, slide her hand down his thigh, nestle in beneath his arm, feel his warm touch against her arm and have him tell her some mundane story about his day, just to feel like an important piece of his life.

              She didn’t get to do either before he spoke to her.

              “What’s got you all spooked? Those bitches with the signs? Don’t worry about that. I don’t think anyone’s really gonna use them as cover.”

              She moved to sit beside him; she had to turn sideways to fit between his knees and the coffee table, her thighs brushing against his jeans with a soft sound that tickled the insides of her ears and gave her gooseflesh. She sat a respectable distance from him, faced the TV – Pawn Stars – and folded her hands in her lap.

              “It was really awful,” she said, “what I did to Ronnie. I feel guilty about it.”

              He studied her with a faint almost-smile, elbow propped on the arm of the couch, bottle halfway to his mouth. “Him you feel guilty about. But me no.”

              She turned to him sharply. “Why would I feel any guilt about you?”

              He shrugged and glanced away. “You were rude to me.”

              Her mouth fell open. “Rude to you.”

              “And you didn’t call me.” His face hardened, less amused, more serious. “We’ve got murderers on the loose. When someone tells you to call, you call.”

              “I did call, I just didn’t call you.”

              “That’s my point.”

              “Why?”

              He sighed through his nostrils and gave her a withering look, like he couldn’t believe she was acting this way. “You call me, because I’m your–”

              “Your what?” she interrupted, feeling grim and triumphant. “What am I, Mercy? Because I’m not your girlfriend, and I’m not your old lady, and I’ve never been anything but someone to look after, an assignment, for you. Don’t think, after last night, that I’m your whore–”

              He covered her mouth with his hand, gently but solidly. His eyes fired black. “Stop that.”

              She glared at him as he withdrew. “I’ll stop being ‘rude’ to you, when you figure out the answer to that question. Your what, Mercy?” Then she stood and brushed past him, going to join Maggie in the kitchen.

              “Can I help?”

              Maggie handed her a bag of baking potatoes. “You can scrub these.”

              It was a healthy chore, given her mood, scrubbing at the brown skins with a clean brush under the running tap, working out her aggression in short, choppy strokes.

              “You’re doing a good job,” Maggie said quietly as she cut a white onion into long, thin slices.

              “It’s about the only kitchen chore I can handle.”

              “No, I meant-” Maggie tipped her head toward the living room, voice dropping to a low murmur. “He’s old enough and smart enough to know what he needs to do here; he just needs the right push from you.”

              She gave her mom a questioning look.

              “Make him reach for it,” Maggie said. “He owes you that.”

 

 

They were having chicken cooked in a white wine sauce from one of Maggie’s original recipes and the baked potatoes. The dish called for something lighter, a vegetable, Maggie said, but the potatoes were what she had, so that’s what they were eating. The lid had just gone on the skillet of chicken to simmer when the growling of Ghost’s bike reached their ears. Ava heard Mercy get up from the couch, the old frame creaking as his weight lifted.

              She stiffened without wanting to when he came into the kitchen to trash his beer bottle. She kept her gaze fixed on the potatoes as she pried each one open with knife and fork and loaded the steaming innards with big dollops of softened butter.

              “I’ll see you ladies tomorrow,” he said, gathering his jacket off the rack by the door. “Thanks for the beer, Mags.”

              Ava felt her cheeks warm when he leaned over and kissed her on top of the head, a silent farewell.

              Maggie smiled to herself.

              Ava felt something like panic as Ghost entered. It was like that morning, by her truck, Ghost and Mercy together, with her there. She didn’t begin to know where club politics ended and fatherhood began in this situation.

              “Hey, you’re leaving?” Ghost asked as Mercy shrugged into his jacket and cut.

              There was a careful note to Mercy’s voice, a caution afforded for dual reasons. “Thought I would. Since you’re home.”

              “Stay for dinner,” Ghost said. He clapped Mercy on the shoulder and smiled a cold, not-at-all friendly smile. “Mags always makes plenty.”

              “Oh, God,” Ava whispered. She screwed her eyes shut tight, hoping that when she opened them again, this would all be gone, a dispelled hallucination.

              “What’s wrong?” Ghost asked.

              “Nothing,” Maggie answered for her. “She’s just starving is all. You boys go wash up. No dirty hands at my dinner table.” She shooed them away with a clap of her hands and began laying out the place settings.

              “Mom,” Ava said when they were gone, turning helplessly to her mother, butter knife clenched so tight in her hand she thought she might bend the stainless steel. “Why is he doing this?”

              Maggie sighed and shook her bangs out of her eyes as she folded napkins into neat triangles and wedged them under forks. “This is between them. This is the dick-measuring part of it. Just keep your head down and suffer through it.” When she glanced up, her gaze was warm and reassuring. “This would happen no matter who you picked. Be glad Merc is strong enough to butt heads with him, instead of running away.”

              “But I didn’t pick him!” Ava protested. “I didn’t…I just…this is all so terrible.”

              “Hush,” Maggie said, as if talking to a child. “Bring the potatoes over and stop worrying.”

              Numbly, she transferred the food to serving plates and carried them to the table one at a time, bringing big spoons for the chicken and tongs for the potatoes, the covered basket of dinner rolls and the butter on its glass plate.

              If this went well – and she couldn’t imagine that – then what? Then Mercy got the stamp of approval and they were just together? She may have loved him – he may have even said he loved her – but she wasn’t ready to trust and forgive him yet. The pain was too old and deep to have mended so quickly.

              She heard their voices coming down the hall from the bathroom and a fine sweat broke out all down her back, gluing her shirt to her skin, heating her all over until she was breathing irregularly.

              “Ava, stop,” Maggie said, voice calm and gentle, right before the men stepped into the kitchen, the two of them making the room seem inadequate, like these flimsy walls couldn’t possibly contain both them and their aggressions in such a small space. They were talking about bikes, were even smiling, but Ava could feel the undercurrents, taut lines of threat and suggestion.

              They sat down across from one another. Mercy linked his hands on the table and waited, a show of respect as Ghost made the first reach for the food.

              Maggie made a sharp gesture Ava could only take to mean sit down, and complied with hesitant movements as her mom settled in on the opposite side, bringing out her brightest, most convincing fake smile.

              “I would have planned the menu better if I’d known we would have company,” she said, taking a roll and passing the basket.

              “So you woulda made better food for a guest than you would have for me,” Ghost said.

              “Yep,” Maggie said, without a trace of apology.

              “It looks good,” Mercy said, before Ghost could fuss anymore.

              Ava accepted the potatoes as her dad passed them to her and selected a small one. Ghost regarded her without expression a moment.

              “You feeling alright?”

              “Fine,” she said through a tight throat.

              “You look sick.”

              “Nah, she looks alright,” Maggie said. “Just tired, right, babe?”

              Ava nodded.

              Ghost pulled a sour face. “Tired. Yeah. That’s one word for it.” He sent a discontented look across the table to Mercy.

              “I think she looks gorgeous,” Mercy said.

              Maggie smiled down at her plate.

              Ava felt her cheeks warm, just like she felt the fast rush of Mercy’s fingers gliding down her thigh under the table, a brief touch of comfort and reassurance.

              Ghost grunted to himself.

              “So Merc,” Maggie said, voice too loud, plowing ahead with shoveled-on cheer. “Have you found a place yet?”

              He made a face as he cut into his chicken. “Nah. Haven’t really had a chance to look for one.”

              “Plenty of time for other things, though,” Ghost said.

              They ignored him.

              “Your old place is available, above the bakery,” Ava said, before she could catch herself. For a fleeting second, she let her mind go back there, to his cozy little spot with the paperbacks on the shelves and the lamplight falling in buttered puddles across the old boards. She allowed herself to envision him, barefoot, in jeans and old thin undershirt, one leg hooked over the arm of his chair while he read Tolstoy with the cover folded back, the look of easy concentration on his face that transformed him from biker to inquisitive student. He liked to learn things; that trait was sexier than all the tattoos and the motor oil and calluses.

              She gave herself a shake, banishing the memories, and saw Mercy studying her, a faint spark of wonder in his dark eyes. He’d let his thoughts wander down the same path hers had taken, she realized. He’d thought of the old place and he’d hoped, for a moment, that maybe the rooms above the bakery were a sign being handed to them. A chance to start over, go back to what they’d started, without those awful five years in between; without the devastation of his leaving.

              “Ronnie looked at it,” she said, forcing her eyes down to her plate. The chicken was giving off this heady olive oil and wine smell, the potatoes sending curls of white steam up to whisper against her face. “When he was shopping, he went by and saw it. It might not be available still. That was last week.” Why couldn’t she stop talking? The words just kept coming, waiting for someone else at the table to cut her off. “It’s a nice little place. Not that expensive. Someone probably snapped it up already. It–”

              “I can call the agent,” Mercy said, his tone gentle, like he knew she was stumbling. “I’ll do that in the morning.”

              “Well, if it’s gone, you can find something else for a steal,” Maggie chimed in. “This is a buyer’s market. Who knows” – her voice gained a note of excitement – “maybe you could afford an actual house. There’s this place” – she gestured at Mercy with her knife, little drops of wine sauce slinging down onto the tabletop – “not two streets over, and it has the cutest little front porch. It’s been on the market for a long time and–”

              “Mags,” Ghost cut in. “Stop.”

              She lifted her brows, questioning the interruption.

              “Merc has a lot of shit to get straightened out before he starts buying houses. Right?” Awful, chilly smile across the table.

              “I dunno.” Mercy smiled back. “I think I’ve got most of the shit straight. The important parts, anyway.”

              Ghost snorted. “Parts?”

              Maggie slapped her palm down on the table. The plates and glasses and flatware jumped, clinking against one another. “That’s enough!” she snapped, her eyes going scary-large, her jaw clenching up until the tendons stood out along her neck. “This is my table, boys. Mine. The table in the chapel? That’s yours. You can cuss, and insult, and rip into each other around that table all you want. You can butt heads at work, on runs, in the clubhouse. You just hate the hell out of each other. But this is my table, and I will not eat dinner with you two sniping across my beautiful chicken while I digest. So knock it the hell off!”

              Her eyes moved between the two of them, daring a challenge.

              The tension held for one long second, then both nodded.

              “Sorry.”

              “Sorry, babe.”

              Maggie pulled in a deep breath and calmed visibly, nodding to herself. She straightened her glass and plate and picked up her utensils again. “It seems,” she said in a calmer voice, “that there’s enough people out there who hate us all. We shouldn’t be arguing over the fact that we love each other.” She looked at Ava. “Seems stupid.”

              Ava took a deep breath and let it out in a slow stream through her nostrils. “You’re absolutely right, Mom.”

              “Of course I am.”

              And thus the queen had restored order to her kingdom.

 

 

After dinner, Mercy and Ghost exchanged awkward handshakes and Mercy kissed Maggie on the cheek as he was pulling on his jacket. “Dinner was great.” He gave Ava the most unmistakable look before he slipped out the door.

              Ava plunged her hands into the soapy sink water and scrubbed at the potato pot.

              “Oh no,” Maggie said, plucking it from her hands, pulling it dripping from the suds. “You go on and say goodnight.”

              Ava stared at her mother. Would this disbelief never end? Or would Maggie continue to prove the most unmotherly mom in the world forever? “But…”

              “Don’t worry about Dad.” The TV rumbled in the next room; he’d settled in for a beer and some mindless channel surfing. “He needs to chill out. And you know you want to, so run outside and tell him goodbye.”

              Ava shook her head as she toweled off her hands. “You know how you always say you’re a bad mother?”

              “Watch it.”

              Though it didn’t seem possible, she felt a pattering of nerves against her heart as she slipped on her leather jacket and let herself out the back door. She smelled the smoke first, the cigs Mercy had never been able to quit. He didn’t smoke that often, but when he did, he took his time, savoring all the way down to the filter. She closed the door behind her, folded her arms against the chill, and left the patio, following the scent of smoke around the corner.

              Mercy was sitting on the ornamental concrete bench situated between two azalea bushes against the side of the garage, head tipped back against the siding, smoke pluming from his nostrils up into the air like dragon’s breath. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, hands relaxed on his thighs. The moon caught his profile, the ridge of his nose, turned it silver.

              Ava kicked at the grass with the toes of her boots as she made her slow approach toward him. “Get lost on your way to the driveway?”

              He didn’t answer, drawing on the cigarette and then holding it between bared teeth while he exhaled again, long streams of smoke leaving his nose. She found it wildly arousing, a delighted tremor starting in the pit of her stomach.

              “I never could see it,” he said, eyes cast upward.

              “See what?”

              “That hunter guy you talked about. The one with the belt.”

              “Orion.” She smiled as she remembered the night beside the James house, the stars the only witnesses to what had been so fierce and new between them. This moment now, bathed in starlight, felt plucked out of time, a hold on all the worry, a portal back to a simpler state.

              “Yeah. Him. Is he up there now?”

              Ava let her head fall back, scanning the bright pinpricks in the indigo velvet night sky. “There.” She pointed. “Those three stars are Orion’s belt. And those others make up the man himself.”

              Mercy stared. She loved the way the pale light played on the strong, exposed lines of his throat.

              “Do you see it?”

              “Yeah.” His voice: faint and faraway.

              Ava moved to stand in front of him, between his outstretched legs, drawing his attention to her face. “I really do feel terrible about what I did to Ronnie,” she repeated in a tremulous voice. “It was wrong.”

              His brows lifted, a smile threatening. “You did something to him?”

              “I cheated on him.”

              “Did you tell him that?”

              “No.”

              “And you broke up with him?”

              “Not just because you told me to. I did it because it was the right thing to do.”

              “But you did.”

              She sighed. “Yes.”

              “So what’s there to feel bad about?” He shrugged. “Things didn’t work out. He’ll find somebody else.”

              “But it wasn’t fair to him,” she insisted. “I brought him here to meet my family, and I ended up dumping him. Sleeping around on him. That’s so unlike me it makes me want to throw up.”

              A bit of anger came into him, tightening him all over, pressing lines between his brows. “So, what, were you gonna marry the guy?”

              “I don’t know…” She cringed. “Probably not.” Headshake. “No.”

              “Do you love him?”

              “No.” Emphatic and sure. She knew that much, at least. “Never.”

              “Then what the hell’s the problem, Ava?”

              She stepped over his knee and dropped down onto the bench beside him, hugging herself, chilled not from the air, but from the inside, rattled and uncertain. “I don’t know what we’re doing,” she said.

              “I think we’re sitting on a bench, looking at the stars.”

              “You know what I mean.”

              He sighed. “I think regular people call it a relationship.”

              “A relationship for how long? A week? A month? Three months?” She turned to him, gaze pleading. “Merc, you said it would only hurt worse if you told me why you left. But how am I supposed to trust that you’ll stay if I don’t know why you had to leave in the first place? How long until you get tired of me again?”

              The shadows lay harsh across his face as his head turned toward her. He pulled the cigarette from his lips and tossed it at his feet. The last exhale of smoke curled around his words when he spoke. “I didn’t want to leave,” he said, voice hard-edged. “I had to. It was what was best for you. You got to go to college; you got to grow up. You have got to believe me that it was for you, and not to hurt you.”

              She swallowed and glanced away.

              “And as much as I hate this fucking conversation, I’ll have it every day if that’s what it takes.”

              A lump rose in her throat. “What about my dad? Can you have that conversation every day?”

              Instead of answering, he said, “How are you paying for grad school?”

              “What?”

              “How?”

              “I have some grant money. A small scholarship.” She waved helplessly as emotion began to take hold of her, making her impatient. “Mom and Dad are paying for a little. And I’m living with them, obviously.”

              “If you had to stop going to school, if you all of a sudden couldn’t afford it – could you live with that?”

              She thought about it for a fraction of a second. “If I could live five years without you, I think I can live without anything.”

              His hand settled on her thigh and squeezed.

              The truth tumbled over her, thick and final, like molasses pouring. She didn’t gasp, didn’t reel. The truth brought a certain furious calm to her, a place to focus all her pent-up hatred and rage.

              “Dad,” she said, and knew from his face that she’d hit on it, finally, the real reason. “He threatened to cut me off if you stayed.”

              His hand squeezed again, and she knew she was right. “I am, and I will always be, a broke-ass mechanic. I can’t give you nice things, like Ronnie can.”

              She swallowed hard. “Apparently, you gave me a bachelor’s degree.”

              “Ava–”

              “What else?” she asked, voice thready. “What else can you give me, Felix?”

              He held her gaze a long moment. Then he offered both his massive hands to her, palms-up and silver in the moonlight, lined and rough and achingly familiar, etched deep with violence, empty and waiting to catch her.

              She was crying as she went to him, pressed her mouth to his, draped her arms around his neck and settled high in his lap.

              He pushed her hair back so he could hold her face. Then lower: her shoulders, the curve of her waist, her hips, crushing her against him as he kissed her.

              He eased her back, finally, their breath steaming between them. “We probably shouldn’t, in your dad’s yard.”

              “Ugh. Let’s not talk about him.” She dropped her head onto his shoulder, the warm skin of his neck against her forehead.

              “Okay,” he agreed. “Don’t you worry about Ghost. That’s my problem, not yours. I can handle it.”

              She blinked at her lingering tears, giddy and exhausted, full of a sudden fire. She wanted to snuggle in and sleep. She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to do somersaults across the grass. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to pull him down on top of her and feel him drive inside.

              Instead she merely existed, breathing in the smell of smoke on his cut, petting the worn leather across his back, wondering at the grace of the universe, that it had brought him back to her.