Star
Star carried her box of the few keepsakes she had kept from childhood into Tova's house. They'd already moved her small coffee table and bed out of storage. All told, her belongings fit into the bed of Blade's pickup truck. Well, all of her possessions that had been worth keeping, at least. Some of it had just ended up by the dumpster, left to be someone else's treasure.
The plan was to live here until they at least got the place fixed back up. Tanner figured moving in would save him the hassle of having to get out here every day. He could just wake up every morning, have his coffee, eat his breakfast, then go and tear down old sheet rock, or start working on the plumbing. He, Brendon, and the rest of the boys would have the place back up to snuff in no time flat.
Then, after his mother's place was fixed up, they'd purchase their own home. Tanner said the one he had wouldn't do for his family. He was going to give them the best he could.
Star believed him, even if she didn't care either way. After being alone for so long, with just her thoughts and the awful memories of her childhood to keep her company, a full house was what she needed. The bustle of other people coming in and out. People to watch TV with. People to yell at because the TV was too loud and she was reading.
Tova seemed to warm to the idea, too. “I never had a daughter, you know,” she'd confided in Star one night when Tanner and his brother were down at the Old Crow.
“What about Willow? Didn't you like her?”
“Willow never fit in,” Tova said, reaching across the table to pat Star's hand. “You, though. Honey, you got Blood Warrior ol' lady written all over you.”
Star couldn't help but smile. This was the first time she'd ever felt like she'd belonged. She realized she'd been a square peg all her life, but had always been told only round holes existed. Now, all of a sudden and completely by accident, she'd stumbled across an entire board full of square holes.
“That the last of it?” Tanner asked as Star came into the house with her arms full. He came up to her, arms outstretched to take her load. “Here, let me take that.”
She shook her head and twisted the box away from him, out of his grasp. “Tanner Rainier, I'm barely pregnant. I can lift a box by myself. And, no, there's still a few more. You better go help Blade out with them before he throws his back out.”
“That old man?” Tanner growled before kissing her on the cheek. “He's tough as nails.”
But, he went out anyways to help the president of the Blood Warriors.
And Star Bentley turned and watched her man go. Because that's what he was. Her man.
# # #
Tanner
That evening, Tanner and Blade sat out on the back stoop of his mom's house, beers in hand, looking out over the backyard. They'd loaded and unloaded moving boxes all day, and they deserved the break.
“Thanks for the help today,” Tanner said, toasting his old mentor.
“Don't mention it. Anything for your family, you know that. Your daddy always did right by me.”
Tanner grinned. “I know.” He took a sip of beer and leaned back against the door frame. “You proved that, and more, with all that Aaron shit.”
“You know how it is,” Blade said. “Strike at one of us, you strike at all of us.”
“Damn straight,” Tanner agreed.
They both grew quiet, just letting the chirping crickets fill the silence. Contentment, for the first time in he-didn't-know-how-long, filled Tanner. Everything seemed right with the world. No worries from the Wolves, no worries from Aaron. His ol' lady was with him. He had a baby on the way. His brother was home safe. Hell, his mom seemed to be getting better, even.
“Tanner,” Blade said after a while of comfortable quiet, “I've been thinking.”
Tanner took a sip of his beer. “About what?”
“Retirement.”
Tanner almost dropped his beer. He hadn't seen that coming! “What? You can't retire, old man!”
“Not from the club,” Blade said, a wry smile on his face. “Just from leadership.”
“What are the Warriors going to do without you?” Tanner asked, the shock still reverberating through him.
“Pick someone younger, faster, and stronger. Look, I've been thinking about everything that went down with Aaron -”
“You mean how I almost fucked everything up?”
Blade set his beer aside. “Tanner, lemme ask you something. Know what makes a good leader, versus a bad one?”
Tanner shook his head.
“Making more good decisions than bad ones,” Blade said, “and taking responsibility for them. Sure, you made a mistake, but no one got hurt in the end. But, do you know what makes a man a leader, good or bad?”
“Never really thought of it, I guess.”
“Being willing to make decisions. Period. What you decided to do at the end, with us trying to chase down Aaron, then having to race back to the warehouse? Then just taking his patches and sparing his life? It was a decision, no matter which way you look at it, and the right one in that case.”
Tanner nodded as he listened to Blade. He still kicked himself every now and then about the decisions he'd made during the whole affair, and how wrong some of them ended up being. “I still got so many things wrong,” he said. “I just feel like I screwed it all up.”
Blade shrugged. “Welcome to life, Tanner-boy. Not every decision is going to be the right one. Hell, not making a decision, period, that's as much making a decision. You're just choosing to let events unfold for you.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Tanner said. “But, I just don't think I can ever get over it, you know?”
“You don't. It's called learning from your mistakes. And, boy howdy, have I had my share.”
“Why now? I mean, we proved to everyone around that we can take care of ourselves, even after Pops passed.”
“Cause this whole thing taught me something. I'm getting old. Too damned old. I can't go and fight bruisers half my age like I did when we were getting Brendon back, or go off half-cocked like we did at the Wolves compound. Not anymore, that's for sure.”
“So, you talked to the others about this? To Tyke?”
Blade nodded and took another drink of beer. “Yup. And we agreed.”
“Agreed on what?”
“We want you to be the new president.”
Tanner Rainier dropped his beer that time.
He hadn’t expected this, not even in that daydream-y, back-of-his-head way that wild possibilities sometimes crossed his mind. To Tanner, Blade was a rock – immovable, eternal, not going anywhere anytime soon. And yet, here he was, handing something over that Tanner hadn’t even known was transferrable.
He didn’t know what else to do but what he did next: pull the old, grizzled, now-ex-president into a bear hug. Fuck decorum, fuck that weird little line that sometimes stopped tough men from letting their comrades know how they felt.
When your leader tells you he’s proud of you, when he says he believes in you, there’s only one thing to do, and that’s hug the bastard.
“Easy now, kiddo,” Blade chuckled. “It ain’t like bein’ prez is all fun and games. I’m giving you a job, you know, and a serious one at that.”
“Shut up,” Tanner laughed. “Just shut up and gimme a goddamn hug.”
Blade laughed again and did just that.
After a long moment during which Tanner tried and failed to find words to express the rush of emotions going through them, he released Blade and looked at the shattered glass and puddle of his dropped beer.
“Gonna need another drink,” Blade wisecracked. “We got stuff to celebrate now, don’t we?”
“Damn straight,” Tanner replied. “A job, an ol’ lady, a baby on the way… What’d I do to deserve all this?”
Blade winked. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, kid.”
He was right. For just a moment, it was okay to sit back and marvel at how the perfect life had fallen right into his lap. An image of Star flashed across his mind – smiling that perfect smile, the beginnings of her baby bump showing through a flowing shirt.
She was his. Now and forever. He couldn’t wait to get started on that forever part.
THE END
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