TWENTY-SIX

Mel

 

The outcome was inevitable. He’s taunted me all week with his goddamn towel barely covering everything after his showers, sleeping in nothing but his skin-tight boxers, and leaving me breathless and wanting with his stolen kisses.

You can’t wake a dormant volcano and then expect it not to erupt.

I place a hand behind me on the seat and lean back as he cruises the street, looking for this damn liquor store some guy said he saw Hooch at. My little brother would probably have more chance of blending in if he was more mainstream, but when you’re over six foot of broad muscle, with distinctive tattoos and piercings, people tend not to forget.

He can ditch the bike, shirk the cut, and even put a freaking suit on, but he’ll always stand out from a mile away.

My left arm snakes high on Dog’s chest as I snuggle close again. I tuck my hand beneath his cut and toy with his hardened nipple through the fabric of his shirt. He sets a warning hand on my knee, squeezing tight.

I love that I get this reaction out of him. Ask me a few years ago when we first struck up conversation at a club meet if I thought we’d end up here, and I would have laughed in your face. Me? Settle for the young, immature prospect that seemed hell bent on the bachelor life? No way.

But people change. Time passes and we grow up. Maybe not mature quite as much, but our experiences definitely shape us, sanding back the raw edges to reveal the true grain beneath.

Fate dictates who we are. Our reactions to the obstacles placed in our path forms the basis for what we become.

You can either roll with the punches or fight the inevitable until the world wins out.

I choose to adapt.

The vibration through the seat grows as Dog slows to a stop outside a liquor store with beautiful vintage style script painted on its windows. He walks us back and kicks out the stand as I stretch my arms out over my head. I place a hand to his shoulder to steady myself when the bike tips onto its rest.

“Comin’ in, or waiting here?”

I set my foot on the peg, and then push to climb off the seat. “What do you think?”

Dog eyes me with a smile as he shakes out a smoke. The curl of his lips never fades, even as he puts the cigarette between them and lifts a flame to it.

“What are you smirking about?”

He wiggles the fingers of his right hand at me. “Still smells like you.”

“That’s fucking gross,” I snap. But hell, there’s no denying the throb that reminds me what that hand was doing to smell like me.

He chuckles and widens his legs to stretch out while he sucks back the smoke.

A pickup is parked to our left, a slightly rusted sedan to our right. I run my eye down the street, taking in the details I was too wrapped up in my thoughts to notice before. Most of the shop fronts bear worn and faded signs, yet the streets are clean, and people go about their lives without hesitation. The road is quaint, paved with bricks, and the buildings all show that this town was established a very long time ago.

What strikes me most, though, is how friendly it all seems. So calm. It’s a good place to be; I can see why Hooch stopped here.

“Right, babe.” Dog stamps his cigarette out and dismounts, pocketing the key. “Let’s see what we can find out.”

I swallow back the hope that this is the break we need. After all, we’ve followed a seemingly endless trail of breadcrumbs to date with no real sign of it ending.

The door-chime sounds as we enter, an older gentleman looking up from the bottles he restocks in the chiller.

“Can I help you, there?”

Dog’s movements soften, his body language taking on a whole other look from the swaggering biker I’m used to. It’s an interesting transition. Captivating.

I’d almost go as far as to say it’s as though I’m watching Koen, dressed as Dog, play the part. The line between the two blurred to the point it almost doesn’t exist anymore.

“Afternoon, sir. I was hopin’ to ask you about a friend of ours that was seen in here a few nights back?”

The old guy sets the bottle in his hands on the shelf and lets the chiller door swing shut. “We don’t get many through here, so I’m pretty sure I know who you mean.” He dusts his hands off on his slacks. “Tall guy, lots of ink. Had a beard, and those” —he winds his hand near his ear— “big circle earring things.”

“Sounds about right.” Dog smiles.

I grip onto my left arm, my fingers so tight that I leave white imprints around the tips. This could be it. This could be the break we’ve wanted.

“He wouldn’t have happened to say anything about where he was headed, asked for directions or the like?”

The old man waves us over to the counter. “None of that, nope. But I did gander a look at the key tag he had in his hand when he pulled his wallet out.”

“Yeah?” Dog steps up to the counter, hands braced on the edge.

“Logo of a motel down the way: Six Shooter Cabins.” He holds his hand up, indicating we should wait.

My toes tap inside my boot as I watch his weathered and wrinkled hands pull a directory out from under the counter. He flicks the pages, licking his finger as he does, and then twists the book around to point out a listing.

“There. That’s the address you’ll need.”

Dog leans over, seeming to read it several times before nodding.

“You just go back out here,” the old guy says, gesturing to the street we’re parked on. “And then back the way you probably came, take your second right, and then first left.” His hand flicks around as he describes the directions. “Tucked in behind the old Mason’s lodge.”

“Thank you very much.” Dog nods his thanks, gesturing for me to go as he turns for the door.

“Thank you.” I give the old guy a smile, touched there are still people around who don’t care what you look like; they’re just happy to help.

“You’re most welcome, missy.” He throws me a sly wink and then heads for his abandoned stock.

I shake so hard from either nerves or adrenaline—I can’t pick what—that I have to hold onto Dog with both hands as we travel the route laid out by the old guy. The complex comes into view; a bunch of semi-detached rooms that don’t resemble cabins in the slightest. I scan each window, every dark corner, as Dog brings the bike to a stop on the opposite side of the road.

“If he’s here, I don’t want to spook him.”

“You think he’d run from us?” I frown as I get off the bike, wondering why Dog thinks that could happen.

“Nope. But he might not stick around long enough to see if it’s friend or foe, either.”

I reach up and tie my hair back in a ponytail as Dog dismounts and removes the key. He clasps his hands together, massaging the palms, as he eyes the place up.

“You think he would have checked in under another name?”

I check the way is clear, and then head across the street. “Only one way to find out.”

Dog jogs to catch up and falls in stride as I approach the front office. An older lady with a purple floral shift dress stands from where she’d been reclined in the office chair reading a book.

“Hi. Welcome to Six Shooter.”

Dog gives her a polite nod and discreetly prods me in the middle of my back to coax me forward. I step up to the counter and give her my sweetest smile.

“Hi. My name’s Mel, and this is Dog.” I gesture over my shoulder. “I’m trying to find my brother, and I have it on good authority that he was staying here?”

The woman eyes Dog and then settles her wary gaze on me. “I can tell you if he checked in, but until I see some ID showing you are indeed related, I can’t pass on details of what room he may be in.”

Damn. How the hell am I going to do that? I don’t even have a bankcard anymore, let alone any form of ID. Still, some news is better than none.

“Hooch Coleman?”

“Yes. He came in a few days ago.” She rises from her chair to move across to where we stand at the counter. “I’ve been away though, and my husband Mort has been in the office here. Let me see if he’s still here or if he checked out.”

She picks up a pair of reading glasses and slips them on before opening her planner. I push up on tiptoes to try and see over the edge of the counter, but she curls the top of the page up, hiding what’s written down.

“He’s still here.” She peers over the top of her glasses at me. “You got ID?”

Fuck it. I resist the urge to stamp my foot in frustration. “Honestly, ma’am, I was in such a hurry I left it behind.”

“Well.” She appears to take great pride in denying us a simple fucking number as her eyebrows rise. “I can’t help you, I’m afraid.”

“This is bullshit,” Dog mutters behind me.

He storms out the door, the woman hustling around the counter to go after him.

“Excuse me. Where do you think you’re going?”

I follow after the two of them, stepping outside as Dog spins on the clearly flustered woman.

“Look, lady. You’ve got, what, twenty rooms at most here?” Dog lifts a finger, pointing at her with such raw aggression she literally rears back. “You think withholdin’ a damn number is goin’ to stop us? Shit, woman. All we gotta do is wait out here until he comes out.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Like fuck we can’t,” Dog snaps. “Way I see it, you got two choices. One, give us the fuckin’ number. Or two, I park my loud, obnoxious bike right in the center of your parking lot and wait it out.” He folds his arms, lifting one brow.

I slap a hand to my mouth to save from laughing. He totally owned her ass.

She huffs and then storms back into the office.

“You think she’ll give it to us?” I ask once she’s out of earshot.

He jerks his chin toward her. “Just wait.”

Sure enough, barely a minute later and she’s back outside glaring at Dog from a safe distance. “Eleven.” She jabs a finger toward him. “But I want all of you, including your brother, missy” —she swings her gaze my way— “gone by the morning.”

“Not a problem, ma’am.” Dog ices the backhanded comment with a friendly wink.

I don’t stick around to see what she does next; my feet already carry me toward the cabin in question. A few cars are parked out front of the rooms, but what gets me is no matter where I look, I can’t spot the bike Hooch rode out on. Maybe he is out?

“I don’t see the bike,” I tell Dog as he catches up.

“Probably not here.” He stares straight ahead as we close in on the cabin. “If he’s tryin’ to lay low he might have parked it a few doors down. Found an alley behind a shop, perhaps?”

There’s no point knocking; nothing my brother could do would be news to me. I’ve walked in on it all, living under the same roof. I reach for the handle and twist, but it’s locked.

“Damnit.”

The echo of my knocking bounces around the complex, and yet it goes unanswered.

Dog places his hand in the center of my chest with a smirk and coaxes me back. “Watch this.”

I stand back in awe as he manages to pick the lock using a club loyalty card, sliding the plastic down beside the lock and pushing it open. The daylight spills in from behind us, illuminating what is essentially a man in the throes of ruining himself.

Food scraps litter every surface, interspersed with a few empty take-out coffee cups, but mostly empty liquor bottles. I step inside first, lifting my boot to avoid a pile of clothes on the floor. Hooch lies on his back, spread-eagled over the bed in nothing but his boxer shorts.

Back to this again …

He’s hit rock bottom a few times in his life, and it doesn’t get any easier to witness no matter how many times we cycle back to this point in our relationship. I understand his depression, but I guess we’re just wired differently. Things get me down, sure, but I’ve never known it to consume me like it does him.

“Damn it, Hooch,” Dog mutters as he pushes an empty food wrapper aside to reveal a small clear bag containing what I damn well know is heroin.

“We need to wake him up. If us coming in here hasn’t stirred him, he can’t be good.” I shove all the pain and frustration down into my chest to deal with later and focus on the task at hand.

Getting my little brother mobile again.

“You okay?”

I meet Dog’s concerned gaze and give him a soft smile. “Yeah. It hurts seeing him like this, but at least he’s alive and here, right?”

He leans down and cups my face with one hand as he presses a soft kiss to my lips. “You’re a fuckin’ angel, babe.”

I roll my eyes with a smile, playing off his compliment, so I don’t start to damn well cry when I’ve got something more important and snoring to deal with. “Could you be a gem and get me a damp washcloth if there’s one in the bathroom?”

“Sure.”

Dog disappears into the adjacent bathroom as I take a seat on the side of the bed. Hooch doesn’t even twitch. His hair is unwashed and full of road dust, his beard unkempt and sticking in all manner of directions, but underneath the rough exterior is still that chubby faced kid who would chase me down the hallway roaring like a dinosaur. I reach out and push some of his wayward hair out of his face.

You’re worth so much more than this, baby brother. He wasn’t gifted the best hand in life, but he’s such an amazing man. If only he could see it. I smirk, chuckling on the inside when I realize that us Coleman kids mustn’t fall too far from the tree when we’re obviously all the same. After all, didn’t Dog have to shake sense into me so I’d see what I was worth?

“Here, babe. Give me some room, and I’ll bring him around,” Dog says, kneeling beside the bed. “I don’t want you too close if he comes up swingin’.”

I nod tightly and back up, moving to the foot of the bed. Dog braces one hand on the bed and rests the cool cloth on Hooch’s head with the other.

“He’s really burning, huh?”

I nod, a loose fist pressed to my mouth while I wait in hope. I won’t know how badly the black clouds have filled his head until Hooch wakes up and talks.

“You stupid, motherfucker,” Dog mutters, rearranging the cloth.

Hooch stirs, his face screwing up as he tries to avoid the cold water.

“Come on, asshole,” Dog coaxes as he drags the cloth over Hooch’s face to shock his body into survival mode. “He done this before?”

“Not this bad.” He’s pretty good at keeping his vices separate when he goes on a bender, picking either drink or drugs, not often both. “I’ll start cleaning up.”

I find a shopping bag shoved under the edge of the bed, and retrieve it to fill with the litter around the place. The bottles crash against each other as I place them inside, but as far as I’m concerned, Hooch doesn’t deserve the royal treatment when it comes to his no doubt precious head.

“That’s it, dumbass. Time to come around.”

I turn in time to see Hooch open his eyes, and then promptly roll to his side as his face pales. Dog lunges for the trashcan, only just managing to get it under Hooch’s head in time, and I’m shot back to a couple of weeks ago when the roles were switched and it was me doing this for Dog.

“Did a right number on yourself, didn’t you?” Dog says with an amused look on his face.

Hooch sneers, and then manages to scratch out, “You’re one to fuckin’ talk.”

I could both cry and laugh with happiness. We found him. We actually found the damn fool, even if he is worse for the wear.

I carry on picking up the mess as Hooch groans, righting himself so he’s seated on the side of the bed. He looks like he’s been dragged through hell backward and it’s no surprise.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Dog lunges for a half-used bottle of Jack Daniels before Hooch can reach it, holding it high.

I snatch up the bag of crack and pinch it in front of me. “And you aren’t getting any more of this, either.” I don’t care if he’s ready to give this shit up, or not. I’m ready for him to and damn it all if I’m not going to break myself trying to keep him straight.

It’s time our family moved on from this cycle of self-destruction. Hell, we’ve been through so much, lost so many, but fuck it all, I want what we have left to survive, and his pity-party of booze and drugs won’t cut it.

I drop my hand to place the crack in the bag of trash, and Hooch absolutely loses it. He lunges off the bed, shouting, “You get that the fuck outta there.”

I retreat, my back finding the wall as my heart pounds painfully in my chest. In all our years of disagreements, in all the dustups we’ve had, he’s never shown this much aggression toward me. “No, Josiah.” My chin dimples at the sound of his real name from my mouth, but fuck it all, I need him to know how serious I am. “You would do this for me.”

“Hand it over, Mel.” His eyes are haunted, the truth he wants to deny trapped within.

“No.” I lift the tiny rock of bullshit between us. “I won’t see you kill off the only thing I have left.” He takes that last connection to family away from me, I may as well be dead too.

“Don’t you get it?” His face contorts as he fists his hands, the anger rising. “What does it matter if I die?”

“You don’t mean that.” My chest hurts so bad I want nothing more than to drop this bag and step outside, suck fresh air into my lungs and escape this melting pot of misery. Yet, I won’t give him that satisfaction. I won’t let him scare me away just because he’s too afraid to admit he’s scared himself.

“I do,” he argues. “I screw it up, Mel. That’s what I do. It’s what I’ve always done.”

If I could wish for one thing for my brother, it would be that he stops blaming himself for everything that’s gone wrong around him. He’s not always the cause. “Mom leaving Dad wasn’t your fault.” I remind him of the very thing that set him off the rails to begin with.

“No? Then what about Dana dying? Don’t tell me that I did the right thing there by standin’ around waiting like Dad told me to.” What is he talking about? “I should have listened to this.” He thumps a closed fist to his stomach. “I should have gone in there to get her.”

“And what?” I yell as Hooch crowds me against the wall. “Got shot to hell, as well?” All I know is that both Dana and Daddy were shot at Carlos’ compound. But nobody told me any more than that. Hooch’s guilt confuses me considering from what I know he wouldn’t have had a chance at changing the outcome.

“Maybe this isn’t the time to discuss this,” Dog interjects, placing a hand to Hooch’s chest.

I turn my head to the side, staring at the wall beyond Dog.

“I’m sorry.” Hooch turns away, giving me space to breathe again. “How did you find me?”

I look to Dog, and he opens his mouth to answer, yet Hooch interrupts with another question.

“What day is it?”

“Thursday,” Dog says.

The pain in my chest puts down roots as Hooch drops to the side of the bed, pinching his brow. “What day did that tanker roll over on the I-70?”

“Monday.”

Something about that single word disturbs him. Hooch launches off the bed, and my hands tighten on the bag as I place it between him and myself. The haste in which he moves has Dog reaching for his gun. Hooch’s eyes widen, and he lifts both hands to try and calm us down.

What the hell have we walked into? Is there any part of the brother I love left?

“We gotta get the hell out of here,” he mutters, searching for what I presume is clothes.

“We’ve got time,” Dog says. “It’s”—he checks his watch—“a bit after four. We’ll hang around until it’s dark and head off then.”

I continue cleaning up; if we’re spending half the night here then no way in hell am I sitting around in this stinking mess.

“Nope,” Hooch argues as he hops on the spot, tugging his jeans on. “Gotta go before then. If you’re here, then that asshole’s probably already got eyes on the place.”

“What asshole?” I empty an overfilled ashtray into the bag, eyeing both men as I do.

“Damn it.” Hooch bites out. “I’ve got some explainin’ to do, but first we need to—” He promptly leans over and hurls what little is left in his stomach into the trash again.

“Fuck man.” Dog covers his nose as I fight back my own vomit. “I hope you ain’t gonna do this the whole way home. I’m not stoppin’ if you are.”

“Thanks,” Hooch replies sarcastically.

“Any time.”

I tie the top of the bulging bag and set it down by the door, looking for another. Hooch eyes the litter from his position, clearly still mad I threw out his drugs. They’ll be buried in the bottom of a dumpster before the day’s out, too. No way in hell is he getting his hands on that shit ever again.

“Donovan Jessup,” I whisper as I drop into the lone armchair. “That’s what you’re goin’ to explain, right?”

His eyes narrow on me. “How do you know his name?”

“Idiot stalked the clubhouse couple of weeks after you split. Crackers returned the favor and put eyes on him.”

Hooch laughs, his body language softening as he stretches out on the bed. “Sounds like him.”

“They noticed he was cycling through your usual haunts,” I explain. “So they put two and two together and dragged him in.”

His relaxed attitude doesn’t last long. “What did Jessup say?”

“That he’d been blackmailing you, but you refused to fess up what he wanted, and as a consequence, he got dragged over the coals by his bosses,” I smirk, remembering how Crackers recounted the story when he phoned mid-week. “From what I hear, he was pretty damn pissed at you, big brother.”

Hooch frowns, clearly thinking the news over. “What did the guys say to that?”

“Crackers wants to know why you never brought it to them, as does Murphy. And Digits …” I glance over at Dog, wondering just how much we should share.

“What?” Hooch asks.

Dog takes a seat on the end of the bed, his hands hanging between his knees as he leans forward, elbows on his thighs. “He was more concerned with why you involved Dagne.”

I’ve heard the murmurs going around, about Digits’ apparent fascination with the woman Hooch brought home. Can’t say I’m all that comfortable about it, but at the same time, I’m confident the guys will watch out for her, even if she is only a guest in our home.

Because that’s what these guys do: look out for their own. And Dagne? I’m pretty sure by the fire in Hooch’s eye, she’s one of us now.

Dog and Hooch continue to discuss specifics as I slip outside to catch a breath of fresh air. The first hues of the sunset streak across the sky, mottled with the fading blue of the day.

I close my eyes, feeling the whisper of a breeze on my face, and take a deep breath. This is my life. These people are my loves, and I don’t know how I ever thought that I could be anyone different.

If I had left the safety of the club, if I had run away again to look for myself, what would I have found? Did I really think there was something better out there? People who would mean more to me than this lot do?

I shake my head and smile, opening my eyes to the world around me as a peace like I’ve never known washes over me. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in this moment or have it any other way. Because despite our losses, despite the terrible things that have happened to the Fallen Aces as a club, we’ve proved our worth. When the whole world felt as though it was falling apart, our guys managed to come together and pull through.

A strength that makes me so damn proud to call the Fallen Aces my family, to say that the Fort Worth clubhouse is my home.

I’m home.