36
Calder sat on his bed, watching Crazy Bitch unpack his clothes. He fidgeted with the bracelet that had just been snapped onto his wrist, wanting her to leave.
“I can do that. I’m not an invalid.”
“You will be if you use that tone of voice with me again.”
He jerked his gaze away when she looked over her shoulder at him. Calder couldn’t bear to have her look at him.
It was all still a blur to him. The last thing he remembered was coming out of the bathroom to have an elderly man asking him to lift a case of bottled waters out of his truck, and then following him out of a side door to a car with the trunk already open. When he bent to lift the case out, he remembered feeling a sharp pain. He didn’t remember anything after that until he woke up in a hospital room with Stud and Crazy Bitch sitting on chairs beside his bed.
He had numbly tried to wrap his mind around what had happened to him the two days he had been under Candi’s sick control. That she had conned an old man into kidnapping him was bizarre. That she had also used the promise of sex and marriage to get a rent-free home and money showed that the time she had spent in prison had taught her how to up her game.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were an informant?”
Crazy Bitch put his empty suitcase in his closet before turning back toward him. “I was going to the night you disappeared.”
Stud had already explained to Calder about the DEA’s drug bust and Crazy Bitch’s involvement.
“You had plenty of time to tell me before then, like the night me and Stud went looking for Sam.”
“You know what happens to informants. I wanted you to stay out of it. I knew you would try to help, and I didn’t want you hurt.”
“You didn’t want me helping because you didn’t want me coming into contact with some of my old friends,” he accused.
“Maybe,” she admitted frankly with a shrug. “Don’t bust my chops because I wanted to protect you.”
“But you denied me the opportunity to protect you.”
“I’m used to watching out for myself.”
“You didn’t mind Lucky watching out for you.”
“And how well did that go? He’s still in the hospital. He may be going home tomorrow, but the doctors say it will take a couple months for him to fully recover. His nickname is Lucky for a reason.” She rolled her eyes.
“You were the lucky one. What if you had gone inside the club with him?”
“Then Bear would have been dead, plain and simple. Bear wouldn’t have been able to take both of us on. He just got lucky that Lucky didn’t really believe Bear would hurt him. It nearly cost him his life,” she mumbled the last part.
“Like you wouldn’t have made the same mistake.” Feeling disparaged, Calder jerked to his feet, shoving his hands into his back pockets to keep from shaking her.
She rigidly braced herself as if she could read his mind. “It takes more to earn my trust than sharing a few beers. How do you think I caught on that Sam tried to roofie me?”
Calder blanched, sitting back down on the bed. “You’ve been roofied before?”
She looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “I had been in and out of foster care since I was three years old; you really don’t think all of them were doing it out of the kindness of their hearts, do you? Jeez, I got some swampland I could sell you cheap.”
“Who? I want to know—”
“Why? He’s dead.”
Calder’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. “He’s the second man you killed?”
She pressed her finger against her forehead then pointed the same finger at him. “Give the man another cigar.” She sarcastically gave him a smug grin. “Son of a bitch didn’t know what hit him. Of course, he didn’t know I had caught on to what he was doing. I switched drinks with him. Poor man.” Crazy Bitch clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Had a heart condition, so they didn’t do an autopsy.”
“You really are crazy.” Calder stared at her in stunned disbelief.
“I’ve been telling you that all along.”
“Yes, you have. You really don’t need me to protect you, do you?”
She came to sit beside him, taking his hand. “No, I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t need you. I need you to help me figure out when to push that red button from going crazy, and I’ll help you when you need to push yours when you get tempted by drugs.”
“I didn’t willingly take the drugs Candi gave me. I told you I didn’t need to come here. I spent five days in the hospital.”
“It’s a safeguard. It’s just for a couple weeks.”
“I want out.” He pulled his hand away from hers as he felt the familiar need clawing at his guts. “I shouldn’t have to stay here. The police know Candi and that old man kidnapped me; they said I could go home. If you and Stud hadn’t talked me into coming here, I could be at the club.”
“Why did you say the club instead of my apartment? Because you know it would be easier there to get what you want?”
“Go home and leave me alone!” he shouted, angry that she had spotted the real reason he wanted out of the rehab center.
Ignoring him, she stood up. “You want me to go to the restaurant next door to get you a burger and fries? I know you must be sick of hospital food. You’re probably sick of the food here from when you stayed with Gavin.”
“What is it going to take for you to go home and leave me alone? I’ve told you every day since I woke up, I told you all the way here from Jamestown, and I’m telling you now. How can you even look at me?
“I may not remember the details, but I know bits and pieces. You know I fucked her.” He jerkily stood up, unable to look at her. “You know I want whatever she pumped into me so badly that I’m willing to lie to you to get out of here.”
“I know.” She moved around him so he couldn’t see her. “I know how much you love me doesn’t compare to how much you want those drugs. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m not leaving—to remind you how much we love each other.”
He ran his hands through his hair, wanting to tear it out at her stubbornness. It was easier not to argue. She didn’t know how hard it was to want it so badly. She would never know, because she had always been strong. He was weak. He would always be weak.
Lying down on the bed, he pretended she wasn’t there. Then, when he heard the door opening, he didn’t know what was worse: that she had gotten fed up with him and left, or that the nurse had come in to give him another dose to ease the cravings that were splitting his every nerve ending with a driving need that wouldn’t be assuaged until it got what it wanted.
He heard someone walk around the front of his bed. Raising his eyelids, he looked up to see Gavin.
He waited for him to say some of the same bullshit he had told him when he arrived at the rehab center.
Gavin didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. He just held out his hand.
One Week Later…
“Cut it off. I can’t stand it. Either you do it, or I will.” Calder yanked at his hair, unable to stand the pressure of it on his head.
“You love your hair.”
Calder irritably tried to yank a lock out.
“Fine. You want it cut, I’ll cut it for you.” She left his room, coming back five minutes later and motioning for him to take the chair by his window. “I love short hair on men, so it’s no skin to cut yours.”
As he felt her cut his hair and each lock fell, it felt as if he was losing ten pounds of dead weight.
When she finished, he ran his hand over it, enjoying the feel of the cut.
“Let me see your makeup mirror.” He held out his hand for her to give it to him.
“Why? It looks good.”
“I want to see.”
“Then go look in the one in the bathroom.”
“I will, but I want your mirror so I can see the back.”
Scowling at him, she didn’t reach for her purse. “You think I’m s
uch a bitch that I would shave another rat on the back when you’re down?”
Calder didn’t drop his hand, waiting for the mirror.
Glowering, she got the mirror, slapping it down onto his palm. “There.”
Going in the bathroom, he went to the sink, admiring his haircut until he turned around.
Gritting his teeth, he went back to his room.
The bitch had sneaked out. She had cut off most of his hair, leaving one long strand that looked suspiciously like a long rat tail, and then ran away. Crazy bitch.
“Three Musketeers.”
“What?” Calder asked when he came back from group therapy. “You want a candy bar?”
Crazy Bitch was sitting on his bed, painting her toenails. He wanted to take a nap, yet she had all her shit arranged so he would feel like an ass to make her move.
“Fat Louise and Cade were allowed to visit Charlotte. Fat Louise asked her if Greer had given her a clue to give them. Charlotte didn’t know what she was talking about, just kept asking them to get her something to eat. Their time was almost up when Cade figured it out. Fat Louise had asked him to buy her a candy bar for the trip home. They gave one to Charlotte, and she just thanked them, and they left. Well, they left after Cade bought all the Three Musketeers they had in the machine. I feel sorry for the poor fuckers who go to visit her before the vending machine is restocked.”
She was laughing so hard that Calder didn’t think she was sorry at all.
“When they opened the candy bars, there was a clue inside?” Calder asked, sitting down on the bottom of his bed.
“What do the musketeers guard? They protect the royal family, damsels in distress.” Crazy Bitch laughed. “You like this color?” She wiggled the big toe she had just finished painting. “It’s called Sinful Red.”
He swallowed. “I like it a lot.”
“Thought you would.”
“So, what about the clue?” Calder watched as she accidentally painted the side of the nailbed.
“The clue was Three Musketeers. Fat Louise must have eaten half the candy bars before they were smart enough to figure it out.”
She handed him the nail polish and brush. “I hate painting my toes. I always make a mess of them.”
He swallowed hard at her helpless, wide-eyed, pleading look that enticed him to take over. “I can do them for you.”
“Thanks.” She plumped his pillows behind her back. “Make sure you do them right. I’m picky about my toes.”
Calder set her foot on his lap. The part of his anatomy that hadn’t stirred since he had awoken in the hospital lengthened under his jeans.
“You are?” His fingers started shaking when she pressed her heel down on his growing bulge.
“Hot thang, you have no idea about the things I can do with my toes.”
One Month Later...
“Are you ready to go?”
Calder locked the sliding glass door then turned to see her waiting by the door, his suitcase already in her hand. It was a sight he would always remember. The woman he loved waiting to leave by his side.
“Almost.” Calder went to the wall in front of his bed, grabbing the pictures she had hung there, despite the administrator’s protests. They were in a row so he would see them first thing in the morning, and so they were the last things he saw at night. And every single time he had seen them, he had wanted to break. He had wanted to break so many times, and he had. And when he had broken down, falling backward into despair, she had caught him and brought him back.
He lifted Star’s picture off the hook, then Crazy Bitch’s, and then Stud and Sex Piston’s family portrait.
They were all waiting for him in Stud’s van, waiting to drive them home.
Tucking his pictures into the outside pocket of his suitcase that he took from her, he let her go first, taking one last look around before turning out the lights.
Holding hands, they walked to Gavin’s door, where Calder paused before knocking.
“Are you sure? It’s your last chance to change your mind?”
Crazy Bitch grinned. “I’m sure.”
Calder knocked, letting her open the door when they heard Gavin tell them to come in.
The friendship they had developed when they had first met had transformed into a bond that had Calder saddened at being released before Gavin.
The man who was staring out the window no longer needed his constant companionship. As close as they had grown, Gavin’s personality had undergone a change after seeing Taylor.
When he had met Gavin, he had been helpless, almost childlike, wanting to please and obey those around him, with a conscience that ripped his soul to shreds because of the things the Road Demons had made him do, destroying the intrinsic goodness that had been Gavin. As the drugs had been gradually reduced, his mind had then become a labyrinth he couldn’t find his way out of. Then Viper, their father, as well as all The Last Riders, had become gossamer threads, making Gavin feel lost in the cobwebs he couldn’t find his way through.
How could he turn to them for understanding when he was afraid they wouldn’t accept the acts he had been forced to commit? He couldn’t even accept them himself.
Taylor’s visit had been like taking a water hose to those cobwebs, taking away his last hope of leading a normal life, decimating what Viper had worked so hard for him to regain—the Gavin they all knew and loved.
Gavin might have gained weight and strength, yet there was now an austere countenance about him that didn’t give away what he was thinking or feeling. It was nerve-racking and, with his body getting larger every day, it was becoming frightening. Calder had several friends who were the same size, but with Gavin, it was in the way he moved silently, the way he could touch something as benign as a soda can and a tingle of fear raced up your spine, as if the man had a lethal weapon in his hands.
Calder wasn’t a praying man, but he said a prayer each night for Gavin. The man had gone through hell. The traumatic years of abuse and the degradation Gavin had dealt with had taken its toll on him. When he had realized Taylor had irrevocably moved on, it had destroyed something inside him. Calder didn’t know if Gavin would ever get it back, but he hoped so.
Crazy Bitch had helped and fought alongside him so he could find his way back. Until Gavin found that person or cause that gave him a worthwhile reason to take one breath after another, he would never be free of his past.
“I thought you two left hours ago?” Gavin closed the book he had been reading.
“We were about to, but Crazy Bitch wanted to ask you something before we did.”
“Gavin, I know this is going to sound silly, but do you have a package or box that Greer Porter gave to you?”
Gavin stood, going to his closet and taking a box out. “He told me to give it to the first person who asked. Shade introduced me to him when I first got here. He came back a few weeks ago and asked me to keep it for him. He told me it was a surprise and he didn’t want them to see it before the time was right. At first, I told him no.” Gavin’s forbidding expression showed that he wouldn’t be so gullible to anyone who tried to take advantage of him again. “But he said I would know whoever would come to pick it up.” He held the box out farther for them to take.
Crazy Bitch shook her head. “It’s yours.”
“Mine?”
“Yes. It’s a present. Go ahead and open it,” she urged.
Gavin set the box down on the bed. Tearing the tape off the box, he then tore it open, pulling out three black leather jackets, each with different patches and club names on the back.
“I don’t understand.”
Crazy Bitch took a step forward. “This jacket is Stud’s. As president of the Destructors, he’s telling you they will always have your back. In the pocket is a motorcycle key. It belonged to Stud, but now it’s yours.”
Calder reached for the Blue Horsemen jacket, spreading it out to take the keys out of the pocket. “This is my jacket. As president of the Blue Horsemen and brother, I
will always have your back.” Calder handed Gavin the key. “This is the key to my motorcycle. It’s yours. Stud will put both bikes on a trailer and park them at The Last Riders’ clubhouse tomorrow.”
Calder then put his hand in Viper’s jacket. “You don’t need me to tell you that this is Viper’s jacket, or that The Last Riders will have your back; you already know that.” Calder placed the last key in Gavin’s hand. “Viper said he’s been riding it for you, but that you need to ride your own bike. They want you to know that it’s time to come home.”
Epilogue
“You having a good time?” Crazy Bitch grabbed a marshmallow that had been speared by a toothpick, raising it to the lame chocolate fountain Sex Piston had bought online, letting the chocolate dribble over it. Then she raised it to her mouth, bit down, and slid her red lips over the marshmallow, pulling it off the toothpick.
Calder’s mind went blank… with lust.
“Excuse me. I need to find Diamond,” Knox said, stepping away.
Calder didn’t even notice the man leaving, his eyes trained to the strappy black piece that Crazy Bitch was wearing. The fucking thing had more gaps that showed off her skin than it did material. Raking his eyes downward to her shoes that would make a stripper envious, he had to set his paper plate down before he spilled the food on Sex Piston’s carpet.
“What were you and Knox talking about?” Crazy Bitch asked.
“He asked how your community service is going. I told him you were diligently doing your time.”
“I can deal with the community service. It’s the paying for it that sucks. I still miss my car.”
“I’m still amazed you managed to sell it to Train, and for so much.”
“He didn’t complain when I asked how much it was worth not seeing Killyama in it when we go out.”
“He didn’t appreciate you threatening his wife’s safety to get a higher price.”
“He didn’t say anything to me.” She dunked a strawberry into the chocolate fountain.