All the heads at the table had been watching the interaction between Gram and Asa, but they all swiveled toward me at my declaration, so I decided to keep going.
“Can’t I just go to Sacramento or something? I mean, that should be far enough away, right? That way, Gram can drive up and see me on the weekends sometimes. And I wouldn’t have to leave California, so all of my school stuff would transfer fine…” my voice trailed off at the end as I ran out of steam.
“That wouldn’t—”
“That doesn’t make—”
Asa and Gram’s arguments were cut off by Poet’s raised voice.
“Now that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea,” he told me with a nod. “Children need their elders around. Moving Callie so far away that her grandmother couldn’t visit, well, that would be a shame.”
He turned his head to Gram and convinced her with only a few words. “She’d be alone, yes? But we have a chapter in Sacramento that would look after her. And, well, Grease wouldn’t be able to live with her in Sacramento, would he?”
Asa sputtered across the table, realizing that his plan wasn’t turning out the way he’d hoped. He wanted me with him; it was clear by the way he was speaking. And to be completely honest, I wasn’t opposed to that idea, either. I didn’t feel pressured by Asa’s wish to move in together, and at that point, I couldn’t even imagine being without him for five minutes. All of a sudden, the thought of living with Asa didn’t scare me as much as the thought of living all alone.
“Boyo, you understand Callie’s reasoning, yeah? Girl wants to be close as she can to her family and can’t say I blame her,” he said quietly to Asa who still hadn’t said a word. “Question now is how that affects your decision.”
Not one person around that table anticipated the answer Asa would give, because none of us saw a twenty-year-old man supporting a sixteen-year-old girl who wasn’t related to him—especially if she wasn’t even going to be living with him.
“I take care of what’s mine. Doesn’t matter where she lives,” he told us, giving my knee a squeeze before standing up from the table. He kissed my head gently as he passed by me, mumbling in my ear, “Be right back, Sugar. I need a smoke.”
He walked out the front door as if what he’d just promised was of no consequence at all.
Chapter 20
Grease
I wanted Callie with me. I wanted to come home to her at night, in an apartment away from the clubhouse where I’d had a room for the last three years. I wanted a fucking place of my own where I didn’t have to listen to bitches squealing and brothers fighting at all hours of the night. I wanted a goddamn living room that I could sit in with a beer in front of a big-ass TV.
I wanted a home, for Christ’s sake.
I’d been sacking away money since I started getting paid, so I wasn’t hurting for cash, but there was no way I’d be moving from the clubhouse anytime soon if I was paying for an apartment for Callie. I wasn’t making that much money.
Taking care of Callie would set me back in a big way, but I couldn’t see any other option. She needed me. She needed to be out of San Diego, and I saw the guilt on her face when her brother was trying to bluff his way through giving up that fancy-ass school he went to. He didn’t want to give it up but he was willing to. I respected the fuck out of him for that. But if he gave it up, that would be one more thing she felt responsible for, and the guilt was already so heavy on her shoulders…
Fuck it. I’d handle it. She was only a couple years away from being eighteen, and then she could take care of her own shit. I was hoping by then she wouldn’t want to; that she’d be so wrapped up in me that she wouldn’t want to be living eight hours away. At least that was what I was counting on.
I felt like a selfish asshole when they’d looked at me like I was crazy—like I was so fucking selfless because I wanted to pay her way.
Didn’t they see that I wanted her to owe me? I wanted her fucking dependent on me, and I’d do anything to make that happen. I couldn’t figure out what the fuck was wrong with me—I just knew that the minute she didn’t look at me like I was saving her, it would gut me.
I didn’t know how fucked up it would make our relationship. It would be years before I saw how resentment builds from one person being totally dependent on the other and how the beginning of our relationship started a cycle of guilt and blame that would fester and flame out of control.
Chapter 21
Callie
Once the decision had been made, things happened fast.
The next morning, Poet got on the phone with someone from the Sacramento Chapter and set things in motion up there.
Gram called the funeral home where my parents would be sent and tried to move up their service.
Cody slept in.
Asa left for an hour and came back with an empty moving truck.
And while everyone moved around me in preparation, I sat quietly and tried not to cry.
I missed my mom and dad with a depth so overwhelming that I thought if I started crying again I’d never stop. I’d never understood the word sorrow until then. The thought of never seeing my parents again was almost too much for me to handle. Throughout the past few days, I’d known that they were gone. I’d cried and panicked and worried, but I don’t think it had sunk in. It was finally sinking in, and all I felt was… sorrow.
It was such a small word for such a huge emotion.
My parents would never see me graduate from high school or college. My dad would never walk me down the aisle at my wedding. I’d never again sit with my head on my mom’s shoulder after a bad day, or hug her tight while she was cooking dinner. I’d never see her eyes light up with love for me again. And I’d never get to make peace with my dad after the awful fight we’d had.
I’d lost almost everything in one single night and I didn’t understand it. It was so hard to comprehend the magnitude of changes in my life that I’d gone into shock, and as I sat on my grandmother’s couch, I was finally coming out of it.
Without the need to plan or worry, I was finally able to grieve.
I did it silently and without fanfare. I let myself break apart, feeling the heaviness in my chest and the trembling in my fingers, but not allowing anyone to see it.
It’s a common phenomenon to see a child get hurt while away from their parents and then walk stoically to them to be patched up. It’s almost as if they know instinctively that no one will hear them, so they don’t cry right away. Yet, the minute they see their parent, they burst out in sobs, as if the crying wasn’t necessary until they had someone to hear it.
I was in pain, but I no longer had a parent to hear my cries.
So I stayed silent.
I stayed that way, turned inward and grieving, until Asa sat next to me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
“Hey, pretty girl. How you holding up?”
“I’ve been better,” I answered him with a sniffle, unable to hide the frog in my throat.
He pulled me closer to him until I wrapped my arms around his waist and laid my head on his shoulder. His hand came up to lightly run his fingers up and down my arm, and the motion had me relaxing into his body in relief.
“It’ll get better, baby. I promise. This fuckin’ sucks, and if I could take it away from you, I would. Nothing about this situation is okay. Not one goddamn thing. But it’ll get better,” he mumbled into my hair.
“It hurts, Asa,” I whispered back.
“I know it does, sweetheart,” he told me with a kiss on my head, “lost both my parents, too.”
I jerked at his words but didn’t speak. I didn’t want to ask what had happened. It felt insensitive to ask about it. What if they’d been killed the way my parents had? I couldn’t imagine having to explain it to anyone.
“Yeah. Mom died when I was fourteen in a car accident. One minute she was there, and then she was just… gone. Fuckin’ worst day of my life.” I felt him shake his head above me. “Dad died last year. He was sick for
a long-ass time before that, though, so it was different.”
He spoke the words in a matter-of-fact tone, but I couldn’t imagine that he felt nothing, so I looked up at his face to gauge his mood.
“I’m sorry you had to go through this twice,” I told him quietly, lifting my hand to push back the hair that had fallen in his face.
At my gesture, he moved his face toward mine until our noses were almost touching. “Calliope, what I went through ain’t nothing like the shit you’ve had to deal with. It doesn’t even come close. And I’m so goddamn sorry.” He leaned down further until our foreheads were touching and ran his nose against mine. “But I’m gonna take care of you. I’m gonna make all of this shit seem like a bad fuckin’ dream. Nobody is gonna take anything from you again. I fuckin’ promise.” He tilted his head so he could touch his lips to mine before pulling back to look me in the eyes again. “Do you believe me?”
His eyes were so dark I could see myself in his pupils, and I swallowed hard before answering. “I believe you,” I whispered back, and I meant it. This man, so different from me and anything I’d ever known, would walk through fire for me. It didn’t make any sense. He didn’t love me. He didn’t even know me. But for some reason, he’d claimed me. And when everything else around me was spinning crazily out of control, he was there, steady and unmoving.
He made a noise deep in his throat and moved in again, taking my mouth in a wet kiss that had me holding my breath. It was deep and sweet and exactly what I needed.
Our lips broke apart, but his arms didn’t leave me when Gram walked into the family room, worrying her lip with her fingers.
“The funeral parlor doesn’t know what the hell is going on,” she told us as she paced. “They don’t even know when they’ll have Danny and Angie. It’s up to the police and the coroner, and they haven’t said a goddamn word to me!” Her steps sped up as she walked from one end of the living room to the other and then she stopped suddenly in front of us, looked at me with fresh grief in her eyes, and told me quietly, “Apparently, it could take weeks. I won’t be able to lay my baby boy to rest for weeks.”
I stood from the couch and wrapped my arms around her. I didn’t know how to comfort her—her loss was so different than mine. She’d grown my father in her belly, nursed him, and watched him grow into a man. He was her baby, her last baby, and now he was gone. So I just stood there, with my arms wrapped around her bent shoulders and let her sob, while tears ran slowly down my cheeks.
I’m not sure how long we stood there before she calmed down enough to move away, but by the time it happened, Poet had walked into the house from wherever he’d been and Cody was sitting on the arm of the couch.
“Rose,” Poet called softly, “I know this is a shit time. And I know you don’t wanna hear this—but Callie ain’t got weeks here. We’ve got two days at the outside before she’s gotta be outta town. Any longer than that and we’re asking for trouble.”
Oh fuck. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.
I was going to miss my parents’ funeral.
I thought, How much worse could my life get? before I quickly erased the question from my mind. My life could be infinitely worse and I didn’t want to make the mistake of asking a question, even in my head, that I didn’t want to know the answer to.
It was as if Poet’s statement had lit a fire under my Gram’s ass, because the show of grief evaporated like mist and she turned into a human tornado—tearing apart the house.
She raced around, packing up what little I kept at her house into two small suitcases while I watched in horror. When she was done, she gave them to Asa to put into the moving truck as she packed us sandwiches and drinks for the road. But she didn’t stop there. She grabbed a black garbage bag and started stuffing kitchen utensils and pots and pans inside as she explained what each was used for. It was like she was trying to impart years of wisdom into an hour of feverish activity, refusing to stop and allow it to sink in that I was leaving.
“Gram?” I asked anxiously as she tried to tell me the recipe for her stuffed pork chops, “I don’t have to leave yet. Right? Poet said I had a couple days!”
She stopped mid-sentence and took a deep breath as she moved away from the cupboard she’d been pulling supplies from. “I know what Poet said, Callie. And I’m not trying to scare you, baby girl. But these men? They aren’t going to wait. I was stupid for thinking we’d have more time. I know better, and so does Poet. He was being kind, darlin’. We don’t have days.” She laid her hand on my cheek. “We have hours.”
She was right.
Less than two hours later I found myself hugging my baby brother goodbye.
“I’ve got my phone, and Gram says she’s going to figure out all the paperwork and shit, so it should be good for a while at least. If I have to get a new one, I’ll call you, okay?” I asked him as I clutched him tight around the waist.
“Yeah. Call the dorm and someone will pick up. I’m not sure what I’ll do if the cell phones get cut off…”
“Don’t worry about it. If I need to, I’ll send you a new one, okay? Call me all the time. I want to hear about everything you’re doing.”
“I will,” he told me with a squeeze. “Be careful, sister.”
With one more squeeze and a kiss on the top of my head, he let me go and I faced Gram. Her chin was high and her shoulders were straight, but the sheen in her eyes told me she was having a hard time keeping it together.
“You call me when you two get there. Asa says he’s going to head straight through to Sacramento, so you should be where you’re headed by late tonight.” Her voice quieted as she spoke directly into my ear, “That boy feels something strong for you Callie. I don’t know what happened between you two that I didn’t see, and it’s not my business… but I’ve been around a lot of men in my life—enough to tell the good ones from the bad—and I’ll tell you one thing, baby, this man’s as good as they come. You trust him, okay? He’ll take care of you.” She pulled me into a hug, but it wasn’t long before she was holding onto my arms and pushing me away. “I’ll be up in a few weeks to help you get settled. You call me if you have any problems, you hear?” She pulled me back in for a kiss and then pushed me lightly toward Asa. “I love you, Callie Rose.”
Asa wrapped his arm around my shoulder and helped me into the moving van that carried his motorcycle and my pitiful four bags before climbing in and starting the engine. I waved as we pulled away and couldn’t help the sob that left my throat when I watched Cody stand next to Gram, setting his arm around her shoulders.
Asa’s friends, Tommy and Dragon, were planning on escorting us north on their bikes and then continuing to Eugene once we’d settled in my new place. We wouldn’t need the extra protection once we met up with the crew in central California, and Asa had explained that it would give him more time with me if the guys didn’t stay with us. I wasn’t sure why their itinerary had anything to do with us, but I didn’t ask about it either. I didn’t care what they were doing as long as Asa could stay as long as possible before leaving me behind.
Poet and his group were going to stay with Gram for the next week to make sure things went smoothly, but they didn’t seem too concerned. The Jimenez gang was only interested in me, and according to Poet, with me out of the picture, they’d lose interest. I think that Poet may have stayed for another reason entirely—to make sure that Gram had everything she needed as she took care of the enormous responsibility of going through my parents’ things and putting them to rest. I was glad that he chose to stay for her when I couldn’t, but it didn’t help the burning in my chest when I thought of her doing those things without me, so I made an effort not to think about it.
I was getting pretty good at not thinking about things.
By the time we hit the highway, I had controlled my tears for the most part, but I was staring out the window, refusing to look at Asa. Being alone with him for the first time was awkward and uncomfortable, and the fact that he was going to be paying for my entire li
fe made things infinitely worse. Did I say thank you? It seemed so ridiculous to say thank you for such an enormous thing, like the word just didn’t encompass enough to fully express my gratitude.
I was busy feeling uncomfortable, with stray tears running down my face, when he reached out and rubbed his hand up and down my thigh.
“Hey, Sugar. Look at me, would ya?”
I turned my face in his direction, not planning to meet his eyes, but he caught me with them anyway.
“It’s me and you now, yeah? You remember my promise?” he waited until I nodded before looking at the road again. “Why don’t you lay down? It’s been a long fuckin’ day already and we’ve got a long way to go.” He patted his thigh, raising his arm to lay it across the back of the seat and run his hand over the back of my hair.
I thought about saying I wasn’t tired, or spouting something sarcastic about him telling me what to do, but his hand gently smoothing the hair at the back of my head reminded me that he was just taking care of me like he’d promised. I was sixteen years old, alone, and moving away from the only life I’d ever known… and I wanted someone to take care of me. I wasn’t ready to stand on my own two feet, no matter how weak that made me.
So I laid down, my head in his lap and the seatbelt digging into my hip, and I quietly cried myself to sleep as he ran his fingers through my hair and drove us to my new life.
Chapter 22
Callie
My memories of the first few weeks in Sacramento aren’t very clear. They’re mostly a blur of setting up my new place and registering for a new school, but every single one of them has one clear focal point. Asa.
Poet had made some calls while we drove north, and there was an empty apartment waiting for us by the time we’d arrived. The complex was owned by one of the members of the club they belonged to, and according to Asa, the guy had given him a smokin’ deal. He refused to tell me how much he was paying, but when I saw it for the first time, I couldn’t help but think that whatever he was paying had to be too much.