Chapter 10

~ Ever ~

What just happened out there?” My question was directed at Zeke who sat with one leg crossed over the other as his booted ankle rested over the ripped spot of his jeans just about his knee.

Zeke eyed me for a moment and then patted the couch next to him. “Come sit down. We need to talk a minute.”

Anxiety immediately flooded my system with a boost of adrenaline, probably my third hit for the day which was going to mean either I was going to crash spectacularly in a short while or I was going to be up for two days straight. I never could tell how my body would react to stress.

“You need to figure out what you want from them before you move forward with anything.”

“What exactly do you mean?” I asked the question; because I had a feeling he wasn’t just talking about whether or not I wanted to tattoo those men.

“I mean you need to decide if you want a relationship with those people again, and if you’re willing to put what happened in the past and leave it there for good.” He looked me right in the eye as he spoke, and it felt like he could see right into my damaged soul. “My mom had a lot of hate for my old man for some shit he pulled when they first got together. It tore them apart for a while, but finally he convinced her to take him back. The thing was, she never let it go. She never put that shit behind them for the fresh start they were supposed to have. She threw it in his face every chance she got. Every time he did anything slightly out of step she was ready to fling past hurts on him.

“The thing is, by doing so, she was hurting them both, and as a result me and my sister too since we had to listen and hear all about how my dad was a cheating scoundrel once upon a time.” Zeke blew out a breath and went on telling me his family’s business. “My dad still swears, to this day, that he never stepped out on my mom except that one time, and that he knew when he was doing it that he was fucking up the best thing he ever had. When he got her back though, he thought he was getting that same sweet girl back. He had already damaged her though. She wasn’t the same anymore, and he had to live with what he’d done, and how it had changed her.

“The problem was she couldn’t let it go, couldn’t move on, and get past it. Because of that, they never had a chance at starting over. My dad stuck it out with her long enough to produce kids somehow, but by the time I was seven and my sister was nine he couldn’t handle it anymore. He couldn’t handle seeing how the blowback was starting to affect his kids either. Hell, I remember the day my dad sat my mom down and gave her the reality of their situation.” Zeke didn’t look like he actually wanted to tell this part so I just sat and waited patiently until he got his thoughts together.

“He told my mom that I had asked what cheating was and why he had done it. He told her I then asked why mom hated him so much, and why telling her sorry didn’t work. He told my mom if she couldn’t get over shit that was nearly a decade in the past that they had no business being together, because he wasn’t going to have his children poisoned against him based on one mistake he made before they were ever born. My mom fell apart on him that day, I remember because I was peeking and listening in on their conversation. She said she would do better, but you see once you let that bitterness fester too long it becomes a habit. Not a week later my dad was late coming home from work and had forgotten to stop off for the milk my mom asked him to get. She was on a tear, yelling at him, accusing him of cheating again. Telling him she hoped whoever the woman was she was worth the fact his children didn’t have milk to drink.”

“That’s brutal,” I interjected before he went on. Zeke nodded his head in agreement though.

“It was especially brutal, because the reason he was late and forgot the damn milk was that he was getting her a brand new ring to celebrate the fresh start she’d finally given them.”

“Oh no!”

“Yeah, instead of handing her the ring he quietly got up, walked upstairs, and started packing a bag. He came back downstairs, handed the bag to her, and told her she could come back for the rest of her things once she had a solid place to stay.”

“How did she take that?”

“Not very well,” Zeke admitted. “She started yelling and screaming at him telling him she wasn’t the one leaving the house because she hadn’t done anything wrong. Screamed at him to get his shit and get his cheating ass out. That’s when he pulled the ring box from his hand. My mom shut up then, and stood there stunned. My dad opened the box and showed her this gorgeous three-carat sapphire and diamond ring, then he looked her in the eye and explained how he had to wait on the jeweler to finish up since he’d made sure it would fit her finger. He told her, ‘I thought we were truly starting new this time so I wanted to commemorate the occasion with this ring to show how serious I was and how thankful that you finally found it in your heart to forgive the young man I was for the one horrible mistake I made. I can’t continue to be your punching bag though. I made that clear before. I won’t allow our children to continue seeing all this anger directed towards me for something I haven’t done since before they were born. I finally get that you can’t find it in your heart to forgive me. Maybe one day you will. For now though, you need to go see someone, and work on the anger you can’t control. I’ll pay for it, because I helped put it there, but I won’t put up with it any longer. You need to get help. Once you do, you can come see the kids and we’ll discuss where to go from there.’” Zeke paused in the telling of his story then, and when he didn’t pick it back up I had to ask.

“What happened? Did she get help?”

“No, she didn’t. She left that night and went to look for help in the bottom of a bottle. When that stopped working for her she eventually started looking for help in drugs. Eventually, the drugs took her from us. She let one incident in her life define her, muddy a relationship that could have been great again, and taint her children’s lives. So, when I ask what you want it’s because I don’t want to see you travel her path, Ever.” He grabbed my hand and held it sandwiched between his two larger ones. “If you want to forgive and try again with these people, then give it all of you. If you don’t, then walk away clean and cut those ties so the hurt doesn’t fester.”

“Thanks, Zeke,” I told him as I leaned up and kissed his stubble-roughened cheek. “I’m sorry about your mom, and I promise I won’t end up like her.” With that, I left to go to my room and contemplate exactly what I wanted out of this venture, and if I had anything left to give any of them.

I had taken most of the rest of the evening to think about everything, and I still was unsure of how I felt or what I wanted to do. I was so frustrated that the thought of maybe going out and getting completely fucked up on something actually flitted through my mind a couple times, but then Zeke’s message to me would make me feel guilty for even thinking it. Again.

My cell ringing felt almost like salvation, and as a result I ended up answering without looking to see who was calling. “Hello?”

“Holy crap, I can’t believe you picked up,” a familiar male voice huffed out on a breath.

“Jay?” The question his name posed was really something like, what the fuck are you doing calling my phone? It didn’t matter, I had already picked up, now time would tell if that would be a mistake. After another moment of silence I asked again. “Hello?”

“Uh, yeah, sorry. I guess I never expected you would actually answer my call. I’m guessing you only did because you didn’t see who it was.”

“You’re not wrong so far. Do you want to get to the point, or should I just hang up now?”

“Jesus, fuck! Yeah. I just wanted to tell you that I really think you should do the tattoos, even if I end up with a giant dick jizzing all over my ass like a tramp stamp.”

“That’s a hell of a visual. Thanks for the idea,” I deadpanned.

“I’m serious, Ever. Do your worst. You’ll never know how fucking sorry I am, and how much what I did to you kills me. I fucked up bad, and there wasn’t really any fixing it once it went so far. Doesn’t even matter how the brothers made me pay for that shit either. Hell, they damn near kicked me out of the club for it, and even if they had it still wouldn’t have been enough.” He paused a moment, and I wasn’t sure if he was waiting for me to say something, agree with him, or disagree. It didn’t matter because I had nothing to add at this point. Again, he wasn’t wrong, yet.

“The thing is… shit, I don’t know how to say this without coming off as even more of an asshole.” Damn, my stomach clenched and prepared myself for the worst. “I’m so fucking sorry, but please, if you have any mercy in you – even though it’s not deserved – don’t make me the guy that completely broke the club. Your dad threatened to leave the MC if you don’t agree to this, if everyone else didn’t agree to this. He said the brothers broke his family, and they need to fix it the right way this time. Besides, our families are suffering too. Our moms, our siblings, I just want everyone to have a chance at happiness together again. Not me,” he added the last quickly before explaining. “You made it clear you don’t want me in your life anymore, and I get it. As much as I’d like your forgiveness and to start over and be the friend to you I should have been all along, I know that ship has sailed. Hell, that ship burned and sank to the bottom of the ocean and I was the cannon that took it down. I know that.

“Just, please, think about doing this. Don’t just think about it, do it. I can’t take the thought that I’d ultimately be responsible for you never being around your family again.” The pain in his voice seemed genuine. I had known Jay too long to believe otherwise. Still, I didn’t even have a starting point for what to do with the goddamn tattoos, let alone a good enough reason to do them.

I said as much to Jay. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin, and not sure I even want to. There’s been so much…”

“Start with yourself, Ever,” Jay said quickly after cutting me off.

“What?”

“Draw your own tattoo. Draw how you feel about the club, and what everything has meant to you or made you feel. Put your feelings into one single image to start. I’m not saying you actually have to ink yours. This is our cross to bear, not yours, but maybe it will help give you perspective or a direction to go in with everyone else’s?”

He actually had a brilliant idea with that. “I’m still not sure this is something I want to do, or if it would even be good for me to do it.”

“It will be good for you, Ever. I know it will, because you need your family. Lucy needs you and so does your brother. Your dad is too stubborn to admit how much all this has killed him inside, and I’d like to say your sister too, but honestly, I don’t think that girl’s head has come out of the clouds long enough to notice there’s even a rift in the family.”

I chuckled at that. Again, he wasn’t wrong. My little sister was about as clueless as they come, but it lent to an air of innocence around her that I would protect for her, because I wish my life could have been so simple and carefree.

“Besides,” Jay continued. “Deck isn’t the type to give up on what he wants, and it’s going to suck to lose him to the club and family too when he follows his heart.”

“Um,” I started to say before I asked what that was supposed to mean.

“Tell me you didn’t!” An angry male voice shouted in the background of the call.

“It’s not what you think,” Jay’s voice was pleading, and then the call disconnected. I knew who that angry voice belonged to, and I can only assume Jay had been told by his brother not to attempt to contact me. For once, him not listening and following directions may have turned out to be for the best. I would never tell him that, but he did give me an idea and now that the spark was there my hands itched to put pencil to paper.

It took six hours for me to perfect the image that would become my tattoo. Jay had presented the idea as a way for me to open up to my feelings, and not as an insistence that I also get marked, but I had been marked so deeply on the inside that I felt my pain and hurt deserved a chance to see the light of day too. I was done hiding how I felt. I was done being afraid that no one would accept me if I told them how unhappy I was. How unhappy they had made me. In hindsight, I could see that it never mattered, because not once had I had their approval or love anyway. Sure, I had a modicum of it from my father, brother, and even the Jay of my childhood, but the rest of the men had never accepted me. It just took me until now to realize I’d been afraid of losing something I never even had all this time, and that just made me extremely sad for myself.

I snatched up my drawing and went downstairs to find Zeke still there finishing up a client he had no doubt had to push back because of the drama earlier in the day. “What’s up, buttercup?” Zeke called out to me as he leaned in and swiped away blood and excess ink from the man’s chest.

“I have something I want to show you when you’re finished up, if that’s okay?”

“You know it’s ok. Be done here in about five more minutes.”

“Thank fuck,” the guy in the chair huffed out. Zeke and I both laughed at that causing the man to blush. He probably hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

While Zeke finished with his client, got him cleaned up, and checked out up front I managed to get my drawing swapped out to a stencil using the thermal paper and fax in the office. Now, all I had to do was show it to Zeke and convince him to ink it on my skin for me since it was going to be placed on my back. I wanted it to be seen when I chose for it to happen, but I didn’t necessarily want to see it myself after all was said and done. That probably seemed crazy, and even I had a hard time rectifying my reasoning other than to say the hurt and pain I’d endured over the years should have a permanent physical scar on my body, but that didn’t mean I wanted to look at it every day.