Nothing knocks you down a few pegs like looking through the classified ads and realizing the only job you qualify for is a dog walker. Apparently, there isn’t a dire need for female mechanics in the city…who knew? With no other choice, I draw a fat black circle around the dog walker ad before continuing to peruse the others. There is a ton of waitress jobs but that seems a tad bit dangerous. I mean, picture someone gets an attitude with me because the cook forgot to put a pickle on their hamburger. I can’t guarantee I won’t spit in their food and tell them to choke on their pickle. Yeah, maybe the dog walker thing is perfect for me.
Tossing the newspaper on the couch beside me, I reach for the plate of tacos on the coffee table. Setting it down on my lap, I point the remote straight ahead and turn on the television. Another Saturday night in New York City spent sitting on my uncle’s couch watching re-runs of the Golden Girls—not.
My phone rings beside me and I refrain from throwing it across the room when I see it’s my mother calling. It’s the sixth time she’s tried to reach me today and every time I ignore the call, figuring the only reason she’s calling is because she wants something. Usually, it’s money, sometimes it’s a ride to get booze but, it's never just to say hello or ask me how I’ve been. On occasion, she’ll lead by asking me if I’m seeing anyone and always manages to insert a dig about me still being hung up on Linc.
I wish I could say my mother was there for me during my heartbreak but all she did was add insult to injury. She didn’t try pushing me on Shady anymore but that didn’t stop her from trying to push me into the arms of any Knight with a ranking after Linc left. It never made sense why it was so important to her. No matter how badly she fucked up, Sin never cut her loose. There was no reason for me to date within the club unless she planned on offing her man but that was a stretch—even for her.
The phone rings again and this time, I slide the ringer to off. Making myself comfortable I lift a taco to my mouth and take a giant bite just as the front door opens. Turning my head, I look to see who it is and, my stomach drops at the sight of Linc. Closing the door behind him, he wheels himself into the living room and our eyes meet for the first time in a week.
The morning after Coney Island, I woke up feeling the onset of an anxiety attack. Realizing it only took spending one night with him to make me want to spend every day going forward the same way, was enough to scare the shit out of me. I hated that it was so easy to forget how I felt when he left or the tears I cried long after he was gone. The pieces of us that were missing, somehow found their way back together and for one night everything was just as it should be.
For one night we were whole.
Making my way to his room, I promised myself I wouldn’t get swept away by Linc’s charms and the past we shared. He had his life, and I had mine. Our pieces didn’t fit anymore.
His reluctance to agree with me was a shocker. For someone who so easily walked away from me, he was sure putting up a fight when I tried to do the same. It made me question why he left in the first place and if my cousin was right about him never truly getting over me.
The thing about questions, is that the answers aren’t always what we want to hear. I think sometimes we don’t allow ourselves to ask what we wonder and conjure our own explanations in our head because it’s safer. After all, a heart can’t be broken on speculation alone.
Finally, he agreed to leave me alone. I thought I would feel some sense of victory but as the door closed behind me all I felt was hollow. Regret filled me as I made my way back to my room and I started wondering if there was a middle ground to be found. We couldn’t go back to being together but, maybe we could be friends. Whoever advised to fall in love with your best friend was an idiot who clearly fell in love with someone who was not their best friend. Losing love hurts but losing a friend sucks too.
I’ve always internally debated which was a bigger loss for me. Some people fall in love more than once in a lifetime but not everyone finds a friend who understands them the way Linc, and I understood one another. That was rare. It was a gift and here I was being handed that gift once again. How do I throw that away knowing I may never find that again? I spent so many days wishing I could pick up the phone and call Linc. I wanted to share every detail of my day. The good and the bad. I wanted him to make sense of my thoughts. I wanted to laugh with him and I wanted to cry with him. I wanted my person back.
By the time I reached my room, I decided I had changed my mind. I wanted my best friend in my life again even if it was only for a short while. Hurrying down the stairs, I made my way back to Linc’s room but paused when I overheard him and my uncle arguing.
At the mention of Linc’s father, I recalled the years he spent struggling to uncover the truth. No one in North Carolina knew his father was the former president of my uncle’s charter and it took him years to come clean to me. Of course, I never told a soul and kept his secret. I stood by his side as he struggled to find his place in his father’s world. I think what consumed him most was that he knew so little about his dad. He waited for the day to come when someone, somewhere would throw him a crumb and reveal something about the man who made him but, that day never came. It was like the man died and took any information about him to his grave.
“Hey,” he mutters, dropping his keys onto the credenza. “Anyone home?”
“No,” I answer, swallowing another mouthful of tacos. It would be easy to dismiss him. All I have to do is turn my attention to the television and pretend he doesn’t exist. Do I do that? Nope. “I made tacos,” I blurt, lifting the plate from my lap as evidence.
He brings his chair to a stop and raises an eyebrow.
“Are you declaring a truce?”
Was I?
“Maybe,” I decide.
“It’s well over a week,” he points out.
It’s been two weeks since I arrived in Brooklyn. One week longer than I originally intended on staying.
“Thought you would’ve been gone by now,” he adds.
“As part of a truce, you know you’re not allowed to throw shit in my face, right?”
“I’m not,” he argues. “I was just wondering if you still being here means you’ve decided to stick around for a while.”
“I’m thinking about it,” I admit. My gaze follows him as he rounds the couch and pauses in front of me.
“Move over,” he says, as he drops his feet off the foot plates. Quickly, I move the plate to the table and start to get up.
“Do you need help?”
“Sit,” he demands, gripping the arms of the chair. My lips press together as I watch him pull himself out of the chair. Bending his bad leg, he uses the chair as a crutch and balances on his good one. Hoping three steps to the couch, he drops onto the cushions next to me and turns, delivering a wink.
“Show off,” I tease, unable to hide the smile. “I’m proud of you,” I add, genuinely meaning it.
“Thanks,” he replies. Leaning forward he takes the plate of tacos and places it on the couch between us. Helping himself to one, he takes a bite and I watch him close his eyes, savoring the taste. After another bite, he notices the television, and a chuckle escapes his lips.
“These broads are a trip,” he says, glancing back at me.
“You still have a crush on Blanche?”
“Ah, it’s a toss-up,” he says. “Sophia has grown on me too.”
Taking a bite of my taco, I feel his gaze penetrate through me and I turn.
“What?”
“Your eyes are better,” he points out as he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “I fucking hated seeing you like that.”
“Linc—”
“It’s true. I’m not saying it to make you feel uncomfortable,” he says, dropping his hand. “Any man in his right mind would be bothered by the sight of a woman with two black eyes.”
Figuring he’s right, I don’t argue and watch as he scratches his jaw. I know there is more he wants to say but struggles to bite his tongue. Eventually, his curiosity wins and, he speaks his mind.
“I overheard you and Wolf talking about it when you first got here. He asked you if Shady was the one responsible—”
“He wasn’t.”
“Yeah, I heard that part too. I guess I’m more curious as to why your uncle would assume he was.”
For a moment I consider lying to him but think better of it.
“After you left, Shady, and I got close,” I admit. His jaw clenches tight as the words leave my lips and he turns his head. Knowing I don’t owe him any explanations doesn’t lessen the guilt I feel, and I battle with my conscience. I’m sure he’s had his fair share of women after me and I bet he doesn’t feel a lick of regret or the need to explain himself.
“So, you slept with him,” he comments, leaving no room for question.
“We were both in a bad place.”
“Let me guess you were lonely.”
“Don’t do that,” I warn. “Don’t make it like I use my loneliness as a crutch to slip into bed with random men.”
Sighing, he turns his eyes back to me. The silence stretches uncomfortably between us before he reaches out to touch my knee.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he resolves. “I suspected you would move on. I even wanted you to but, I didn’t want it to be him,” he admits. “Anyone but him.”
I didn’t feel anything for Shady. He knew I was using him but, he was too busy going through his own shit to care. It was convenient and a distraction to my broken heart.
“Why?” I whisper.
“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “I guess I wanted more for you. More than I could give you and more than I knew he could give you.”
“It wasn’t like that, Linc. We were never serious,” I explain.
“And, the guy who hit you, what about him? Was that serious?”
After a while, sleeping with Shady became redundant. I realized I wasn’t feeling a physical loss and sex was only providing me with a false sense of comfort. When it was over I wasn’t only miserable but, I was shameful too and I didn’t like feeling that way. It was the driving force behind my decision to leave the Satan’s Knights clubhouse and I soon got a job repairing motorcycles on the outskirts of Raleigh. That’s where I met Cash.
He was a member of another club and like Linc, he liked to gamble. All the things I thought Linc and I would someday do together, I started doing with Cash. We rode together, played together and to anyone watching we were happy. Naively, I thought I could learn to care for him. That he could fill the physical and emotional void but, I quickly learned he was a cheap imitation of the first man I loved.
A stand-in for the only man I ever loved.
“To him, it was,” I finally answer.
“Couldn’t have been too serious for him if he was able to put his hands on you,” he claims.
“Desperation makes you do stupid things,” I counter. “I guess he thought if he roughed me up I would stay.”
“So, you broke it off with him and he punched you.”
Cringing, I turn my head.
“Something like that,” I agree. “I hate that it happened, that I let it happen,” I admit, looking back at him. “I never wanted to be that girl, and it wasn’t until I stared at myself in the mirror and saw the bruises that I realized how much of myself I lost losing you.”
“I’m sorry,” he rasps.
“No, don’t be,” I reply. “I should’ve never given you that power over me. No girl should ever forget who she is because she fell in love. Even after it goes bad, a person should still grow from love. The experiences, the lessons, and the mistakes are supposed to strengthen someone not tear them down. For what it’s worth, I think I shined most loving you and when you left, it was my job to keep shining. You didn’t fail me, I failed myself.”
“I did fail you, Pinky. I failed us both.”
He couldn’t help his lack of feelings the same way I couldn’t control the depths of mine. That doesn’t make him a failure. Not in my eyes but maybe I was missing something. Or maybe, I wanted to be missing something. Maybe, I wanted him to tell me I had it all wrong.
“How did you fail us?” I whisper the question.
Leaning into me, he lays his hand on my knee again and stares at my mouth silently. My breath hitches as his other hand moves behind me. Threading his fingers through my hair, Linc cups the back of my neck and pulls me closer to him. The tip of his nose rubs against mine and my eyes fall shut, preparing myself for his mouth. A whimper escapes the back of my throat when his lips land on my forehead and my eyes flutter open just as he pulls away.
“Stick around long enough and maybe you’ll find out,” he rasps.
A sensible girl would yield to his dare. She’d remind herself of the nights she spent crying over him and how broken she was when he left her. She’d remember the anger she felt when another man broke her heart because the man who owned it was too much of a pussy to do it himself.
I am not a sensible girl.
I am a fucking idiot who doesn’t think of any of those things. Instead, I try to picture what it would be like if I stuck around. If I answered the dog walker ad.
“I’m thinking about it,” I admit, pulling my lower lip between my teeth. I reach for the discarded newspaper and show him the page of ads I circled. “But, I’m not sure I can get on board with being a professional dog walker and I don’t trust myself to be a waitress.”
Taking the newspaper from my hands, he scans the jobs before folding it. Leaning forward, he places it on the coffee table and turns back to me.
“If you want to stay and need a job, the club has a garage. We don’t fix a lot of bikes, mainly cars, and commercial trucks. We also have a longstanding contract with a bus company so there are always a couple of those in the lot that need repairs. It’s a steady gig and all you would have to do is say the word and you’re in.”
“It’s like that, huh?” I question, diverting my eyes to the television. As another episode of the Golden Girls begins, I wonder if I can really stay here. If I even want to and how I’d feel making my home so close to Linc. I’d eventually get my own place and at least that would put some space between us. But, he won’t be in that chair forever. Every day he is making strides, and it’s only a matter of time before he’s back to riding. He’ll throw himself into the thick of the club and working for the Satan’s Knights, I’m sure I’ll run into him a lot. Too much.
Still, part of me really wants to stay. I like being close to my cousins and as much of a grump as my uncle is, I love being able to see him whenever I want. For the first time since Linc left me, I feel at home and to my surprise, much of it has nothing to do with him. It’s being surrounded by my family and not feeling like a burden to my mother.
“It’s just an option. The dog walker thing sounds promising too,” he teases.
My eyes find his and he winks at me.
“If you’re lucky, it’ll be a poodle with a bright pink tail.”
“You remember,” I say softly.
“Of course I remember,” he replies.
I wasn’t expecting him to bring up our five-year plan. I figured he had forgotten all about the stupid dreams we foolishly forged. I spent two years telling myself he never wanted any of those things. Like his love was a lie so was the plan we made. Sadly, I still held out hope. For what I’m not sure since it’s five years later and I don’t have a pink haired poodle.
Taking advantage of our temporary truce, Linc props his good leg on top of the coffee table and spreads his arms across the back of the couch, settling in. I don’t object and silently we watch the television. Uncle Al never comes home and sometime later I close my eyes.
“Kelly,” Linc whispers as he touches a hand to my shoulder.
“Come, you’re falling asleep.”
Too tired to open both eyes, I peak at him through one. No longer beside me, I find him back in his chair, pointing to his lap.
“Come,” he says again. This time he reaches for my hand. Giving it a gentle tug, I open both my eyes. I don’t know why but, I continue to hold his hand and when he urges me into his lap, I go willingly. Like the day in Coney Island, he takes me for a different kind of ride. It’s not one either of us are used to but, it feels as right as all those rides we took on his Harley. Closing my eyes, I wrap my arms around his neck like I used to wrap them around his midsection. He wheels me into his room and orders me onto the bed.
There is no sexual innuendo.
It’s just a soft command.
A plea for peace.
I settle under the covers and watch him lift himself out of the chair. Grimacing as he limps three steps, he falls back onto the mattress. The urge to offer my assistance beckons but, I ignore it and soon he’s lying comfortably next to me. I don’t curl into his body and he doesn’t ask me to.
Instead, he reaches for my hand and laces our fingers together.
I close my eyes as a sense of peace washes over me.
Silently, I promise myself tomorrow I will quit Linc but, tonight I just want to feel like I belong.
Like, I’m home.
Always and forever, home.