Twenty-One
Sam woke to a tickling sensation along her spine. A gentle, teasing touch, moving down to the small of her back. Lower…
She smiled against the pillows, stretched drowsily beneath the sheets. “That feels nice.”
Aidan’s voice was soft, but not sleepy; he’d been awake for a while. “The first hour’s free.”
They both laughed, quietly.
Sam rolled over onto her back and found him propped up on an elbow beside her. His hair was rumpled, jaw shadowed with stubble. The bruises from the sparring match were ugly and dark, but his eyes shone, coffee-colored in the faint light coming through the frosted window.
“You survived your first big club party,” he said.
“I take it they aren’t usually that crazy.”
“Nah. Usually just one stripper.”
She reached up and tweaked the end of his nose with thumb and forefinger, earning a low chuckle that made her toes flex. The orderly, professorial side of her wanted to ask a dozen questions. Where did they go from here? Was forever part of their vocabulary now? Ought she to tackle his disaster apartment with closet organizers and fresh paint?
But she pushed all her wonder back, deciding that she would only make herself anxious. She didn’t want to be the one to wreck this shiny warm thing they had.
Aidan pushed the sheets back and got out of bed. “Probably one of the girls is making breakfast. I’m gonna grab coffee; how many sugars?”
She sat up, pushed her hair back, enjoyed the view as he tugged on his jeans commando. “Three.”
“Be right back.”
He was at the door when a knot of words came unstuck in her throat and rolled off her tongue. She couldn’t prevent them, and didn’t want to. “Aidan?”
He paused and glanced back at her.
“I love you.”
Saying it released a tension inside her, one she hadn’t known she carried. They were just words, but for her, words were trade. Words were religion. Actions were well and good, but for her own part, she had to share the words, so there could be no mistaking her feelings.
Aidan went very still, eyes wide and full of wonder as he stared at her.
“You don’t have to say it back,” she said, softly. “I just wanted you to know.”
He nodded; his throat worked as he swallowed.
“Coffee, remember?” she prodded, smiling.
He nodded again, and even if his lips couldn’t form the syllables, she could read his eyes well enough.
She thought he loved her too.
~*~
The aftermath was always ugly; like a battlefield littered with post-party carnage. Cups, napkins, countless trod-upon tortilla chips, empty bottles. The jack-o-lanterns on the bar stared at him with soot-blackened eyes, all their charm gone. The club girls, likewise, would have lost their charm, nothing but regret and smudged mascara by this point.
Aidan was surprised to find Maggie at the helm in the kitchen, alone, putting together one of her fantastic breakfast casseroles. Wrapped in the sharp scent of coffee, she had showered, done her makeup, and proved exactly why she was the queen of this operation and not some hanger-on.
He propped a shoulder in the doorframe. “You shoulda had one of the girls do this.”
“Nah. They’re all hungover, and I can do it better myself anyway.” She was whisking the eggs together and turned to him. “Oh, speaking of the girls, apparently Jazz and Carter are a thing now. Did you know that was going on?”
“I didn’t know for sure, but I’m not surprised.” He twitched inwardly, not wanting to dwell on Carter or Jazz or that night in the dorm two months ago.
“Does Tango know?”
“Tango’s…a little out of it lately,” he said with a sigh.
Maggie nodded, her frown knowing. “Hmm.”
Remembering his errand, he pushed off the doorjamb and went to the coffee pot.
“How’s Sam this morning?” Maggie asked, all innocence.
A hot bursting of emotion in his chest, just under his ribs; he envisioned it as golden, full of sparks. “She’s good.”
“Baby,” she said as he was leaving.
He paused.
“I like her.”
The heat doubled, pressing at his heart in the best way.
“And you need to tell her about the baby.”
“I know. I will.”
“Soon, Aidan.”
“I know.”
~*~
They were gathered in the chapel by ten, armed with plenty of coffee and cigarettes, the air thick with the scents of both. It took longer to fit all of them in a seat than it did to go over the morning’s plan.
Aidan had already asked Sam to wait for him, spend a few hours hanging out with the girls; he’d tried to keep the worry out of his voice, but she’d detected it, smooth gold brows drawing together. “I want you to be safe,” he finally said, and she hadn’t argued, had hugged him and said she wanted him to be safe too.
She loved him. She loved him and she wanted him safe.
He thought he might float cartoon-style.
As he left the clubhouse, he spotted her having breakfast with Emmie at one of the bar tables. She tossed him a smile and a wave.
He felt so domestic.
It was a cold, drizzly morning, their breath pluming in the damp air. Aidan zipped his cut and caught up to Tango as they headed for the bikes. He bumped the guy in the ribs with an elbow. “You alright?”
Tango walked with his head down, long hank of pale hair flapping against his forehead. “Yeah.”
“Jazz and Carter, huh?”
“I guess so.”
“Dude, if you have a problem with it–”
“I don’t.”
“Kev.”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Aidan glanced toward Carter, ten yards away, face flushed in a mature, self-satisfied way that was uncharacteristic. He felt on top of the world, and thanks to a club groupie who’d done every unspeakable thing with almost every member of the club.
“You could–”
“No.”
Aidan shrugged. “Whatever.” It wasn’t like he didn’t have his own problems, not the least of which was telling that beautiful, smiling girl inside that he was having a baby with another woman.
~*~
“I want my coke back.” Don Ellison had a bad case of aging-footballer-face, and his heavy brow creased as he scowled at them. He could buy an expensive suit – and he had – but he couldn’t disguise the fact that he was an ex-con thug with bad breeding.
Not an altogether scary picture, in Aidan’s opinion.
And not too impressive a turnout, Ellison and his four thugs, when the Dogs were rolling twenty-something deep.
Their meeting place was an empty weed-choked lot between a closed-up restaurant and a struggling laundromat at the outskirts of town. A row of bikes faced off from an Escalade, and the two warring factions stood on either side of the invisible fuse running between them.
“You’ll get your coke back,” Ghost said, “minus the cut I take as repayment for what you stole from me. Minus a little bit more because you killed my dealers.”
Phillip stood beside Ghost, the two presidents shoulder-to-shoulder. “You’ll notice we didn’t kill any of your boys,” he said, flicking ash off his cigarette with a bored expression. “We didn’t even rough ‘em up too bad. And we sent the one back.”
“He’s got a real pretty singing voice, by the way,” Ghost said with a grin. “You might wanna put him in your thug choir.”
Ellison made a face. There was no doubt what would happened to the squealer.
“So, like I said,” Ghost continued. “You’ll get your coke back, but it’ll be on our terms, and our timetable. If you think you can come into Dog territory and do whatever the fuck you want, you’ve got another thing coming.”
Ellison’s thick jaw tightened. “You think I’m going to recognize your territory?”
“I do, yeah, because let’s face facts, Don. You are one guy, in one state, with a big head. Me? I’m a part of an international organization that makes you and your boys look like kids playing mob boss at recess.”
“You mess with one chapter, you mess with every chapter, mate,” Phillip said. “So if you want to keep breathing, you’ll go away and be very quiet.”
“Why not just kill me? Wipe me out?” Ellison asked. “That’s what you did last night, yeah? Sent me the message that you can take me out whenever you want.” It should have been said with embarrassment, but somehow sounded like a taunt to Aidan’s ears.
“Because I’m a reasonable man,” Ghost said, which was a damn joke. “And because it’d be stupid to have another war. Knoxville doesn’t need it, and I don’t want it. We’re grownups, Don, let’s handle this as such.”
Don Ellison’s face slowly began to purple, even though he nodded stiffly and stepped forward to talk things over one-on-one with Ghost.
Aidan felt a quick twist in his gut. This meeting had gone well – too well, in his opinion. And he well knew the look of a man who was burning with hatred on the inside, boiling with barely checked violence. In this scenario, that man was Ellison, and he wondered if his father saw that.
~*~
The next day, Ellison’s coke was returned, minus what he owed the Dogs, and a tentative peace was set up. Handshakes were swapped. The world took a deep breath and settled. And the citizens of Knoxville had no idea they had been at the edge of another war, the Lean Dogs held in their usual awe-inspiring contempt as the cowboys of the city.
Everything was fine.
Until it wasn’t.