I looked up from my guitar, hearing a soft knock at my door. I’d been playing for the last hour or more. I needed the music. I needed to feel it in me. I needed it to take me away.
The last few weeks had been exhausting to say the least. To think just a few short weeks ago, I’d been sitting here happy and content with everything that was going on in my life. I was giving myself to the men, partying and going to school. Moving through the motions of my life, thinking that I was in such a good place.
The reality was that I had no idea what a good place was until I had found Kit. Being ripped away from him had hurt me much more than I’d ever expected. It was like I didn’t realize until he wasn’t there that he’d taken up residence in my heart. Not knowing if I would see him again almost broke me. Even though, I did well to conceal the hurt – lashing out at my so called father with a strength that even I didn’t know I had.
Returning back to the clubhouse was comforting, but also very strange. As much as I loved this place, it having been my home for so long, I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be with Kit in Troy. I’d made my decision even before we’d left Edward Keaton’s home and had told Kit so. I wanted to go back to Troy. Screw school. Screw how much it would hurt leaving my friends and the people who had become my family. I didn’t want to be without him. My heart, my head, and my body were now all now on the same page.
I knew I should be helping with the funeral arrangements, but I just couldn’t bring myself to admit that he was gone. Caleb and I had been close. He was fun and sweet and took his prospect status seriously. He had protected me once, possibly saved me from a place that I didn’t even want to envision in my head. He was my protector and from the sounds of things, he had been Kit’s too.
We were happy, we were together because Caleb had been strong enough to stand up and do what was right, and now I couldn’t even thank him for that.
Dana stood in the doorway, her eyes red and bloodshot, and her usual cocky smirk completely gone.
“Harmony?”
“Hey,” I said quietly, unsure of the reason for the unexpected visit.
Her eyes shot around the room. “If you’re busy I can come back later.”
I frowned. “No, it’s fine. Come in.”
She stepped through the doorway and closed the door behind her. She stood nervously, twisting her fingers together and shuffling in place. “Where’s Kit?”
“Meeting with Optimus,” I said. “Dana, what’s going on?”
She nodded. “Caleb loved hearing you play.”
My throat dried. Dana and I had barely ever said more than a few sentences to each other, and the words were never kind or complimentary.
“Okay…” I said, drawing the word out like I didn’t understand the reason for her comment.
She finally took a seat at my small desk. “Caleb and I got close recently. I guess Optimus told him and the other prospects to keep an eye on us since all the drama happened, and you left with Kit.” She cleared her throat, but a small smile formed. “I really liked him, Harmony.”
“Say what?”
She laughed lightly. “He was cool. We hung out quite a bit, he made me laugh and never made me feel horrible for being a club whore.”
I nodded. “Caleb was very kind-hearted. He never judged any of us.” I felt tears burn in my eyes, thinking about the young boy who would always tease and flirt with me, and whose smile could bring you out of a bad mood in point five of a second.
“His favorite song was ‘Hotel California.’ Every time he was in charge of the stereo he would play it every hour.” Her smile grew. Dana and I had never gotten along. I always saw her as the club girl who would just do anything to get to the top – to get a Brother’s patch. She talked down to the other girls and I’d never seen a genuine smile on her face until now.
“What are you getting at here?” I asked, a little confused by this enlightening conversation into who Dana really was.
“There’s two things he would have wanted at his funeral. That song, and for you to play it.” Her eyes brimmed with tears as she looked up at me. “I know this probably sounds stupid, spending a couple weeks getting to know him, and suddenly I’m talking like I knew his whole life story. But I just felt like we connected.”
“It doesn’t sound weird at all,” I told her with a soft smile, thinking about how quickly Kit and I had formed a bond. It felt like I’d known him forever. “You cared about him.”
“Not romantically. But yeah, it was like I had spent the last two years, being this person, this club girl. All I ever wanted to do was to please these guys and hope that one day they might see something in me that would make them claim me, just like Kit did in you. Caleb was the first person to see through my shit, to not see me as a club girl, but because he liked my company. I didn’t have to flirt or fuck or strip to get his attention. He just wanted to know me because he wanted to know me.”
Dana surprised me. As much as I wanted to hate her, to convince myself that she was just a bitch like she had shown us all, I couldn’t. She was hurting too. She had her reasons for doing what she did. She smiled and stood, moving to the door.
“I’m sorry, Harmony. For things, I may have said or done to you.” I sat stunned, unsure of what to say. She laughed. “I know, I know. Unexpected right?”
“You can say that again,” I muttered.
“Hold on to Kit, hun. You never know what might happen tomorrow.” I saw the sadness shimmer in her eyes. I knew there was a story there, maybe one day I would get to hear it and I would understand the real Dana. But it wouldn’t be today.
The door swung open to reveal Kit and Leo. We all stared at each other for a minute before Dana shook off her solemn mood and gave them a beaming smile before squeezing between them to retreat a hasty exit.
“She smiles?” Leo asked, one eyebrow raised.
I laughed and shook my head. I placed my guitar on the bed and stood, meeting Kit halfway as he walked across the room to me and wrapped my arms around his waist. “You don’t even want to know.”
The ride to the church was a resounding chorus of rumbling bikes, some deep, some a soft and eerie drone. It was beautiful – both the sight and the sound.
Along with ours and Kit’s, there were representatives of all the Brothers by Blood chapters. Kit’s parents were there, so was Del, riding next to us and plastered to Wreck’s back. I caught her eye and we both smiled. I tucked my hand inside Kit’s leather cut, enjoying the warmth that always seemed to emanate from his body. He covered my hand with his and gave it a quick squeeze before returning it to the handlebars of the bike.
The black hearse that sat outside the church sunk my stomach instantly. This was it. We were saying goodbye and suddenly everything was all too real. I hid my face against Kit’s back as he pulled the bike up and steadied it before walking us backward. His bike joining the perfectly formed line of sparkling chrome Harleys.
I climbed off and averted my face from the others as they crowded the small parking lot. Kit flipped the stand down and stood in front of me, removing my helmet and his before cupping my face in his large hands and forcing my chin up.
“What’s wrong, baby?” he asked quietly.
“It’s my fault,” I croaked.
Others avoided us, catching us out of the corner of their eyes and moving forward, thankfully opting not to interrupt our small moment.
“It’s not your fault,” he said sternly as he brushed my hair from my face.
“He wouldn’t be gone if that day in that coffee shop I’d just kept my damn mouth shut. But no, I had to talk back, rev up some guy who I didn’t know because I thought he was just hitting on my friend.”
“Exactly. You didn’t know him. You didn’t know what he was capable of and all you thought about was protecting your friend.”
“I should have –”
“No. There are no should haves, Harmony. There is only what’s done.” He held my face in both of his hands and his eyes burned into me. “We will never have peace in our lives if we spend what time we do have regretting the decisions that we’ve made. We accept it. We make changes if need be. We move on. We live.”
I gripped his cut and plastered myself to his body. I was sobbing, sobbing like a God damn baby. But Kit was right. Second guessing what I’d done wouldn’t bring Caleb back. It wouldn’t, all of a sudden, make everything in the world right again. It would only leave me feeling guilty.
“Come on, we’re going to be late.”
I looked around to find the lot empty. Filled with bikes, cars and beautiful gardens with flowers, but empty. I linked my fingers through Kit’s and we climbed the concrete stairs and entered the church through two beautiful white doors with stained glass windows. The images on the stained glass were of two large white doves taking off in flight and heading for the clouds. It was so simple yet so perfect.
We took seats at the front next to Optimus and Chelsea and several Presidents and Old Ladies from other chapters. A sea of cuts filled the church.
The Priest said a few words before Optimus stood and took his place. He dwarfed the small stage he stood on, strength and power basically pulsing from him. But as he spoke, he was humble.
“Caleb will forever be a Brother to us. Prospect or not, he died doing what he had to do for the club. He protected, he befriended, he stood proud of who he was and what his cut represented.”
I caught Chelsea reach under her seat and pulled out a box, she walked up to Optimus and handed it to him with a small kiss on the cheek and tears streaming down her face.
Optimus swallowed hard before he placed the box on the table next to him and unwrapped it with a gentleness that was completely out of character.
“We all earned our road names at some point, usually just before we were patched.” I saw the leather that was folded up inside the box and a loud sob broke from my mouth. Kit wrapped his arm around my shoulder and hugged me to his chest as I watched Optimus pull the fully patched leather cut and hold it up for all to see. He looked down at the coffin that sat front and center, it was closed, but we all knew he was there. “Shield. You put your ass on the line more than once to protect your Brothers and our family. Even though to begin with your aim was pretty shit.”
Soft laughter filled the room and I found myself smiling. Shield. It was perfect.
Optimus stepped forward and draped the cut over the top of the casket and I heard him mutter the words that I knew were said to every Brother when they earned their colors. “We may not have been born Brothers. But the club now runs in your veins as it does mine. Brothers by Blood.”
I heard the club name echoed throughout the room. Optimus stepped down and followed Chelsea back to their seats. I reached over Kit and squeezed his hand, the gesture returned.
People took turns getting up to say their piece. We laughed, we cried and when they asked for any final comments before things came to an end, my fingers began to itch. I needed to say goodbye and have my peace with this, and the only way I knew how to do it was with music.
So play I did.