I look down at myself, noticing for the first time that what's she's said is true. On my other bicep is a swirl of birds in flight, some black and some white. The white ones have the black cowed. On my back is a man dressed like a biker, with one huge white wing and one huge black looming over him. He's turned in the direction of the black wing.
Yin and yang. The duality of the world and what's inside us.
Sandy is perceptive enough to see something that I didn't even realize about me, and in just that one observation, she's stripped me down to my barest parts.
"Just pictures I liked from the book at the tattoo shop," I dismiss, but her jaw twitches as though she doesn't believe me. She'd be right. Each of the tattoos on my body comes from a design I created. Someone else did the work, but they were always based on my inspiration.
"Chosen by you," she says softly. "So, which are you, Greg. The dark or the light?"
"We're all made up of both, Sandy."
"We are." She draws her lip under her upper teeth as though she's thinking and holding something back at the same time.
"Our mistakes are the black. The times when we've done things that have hurt us or made decisions that have hurt someone else." Sandy's eyes drift closed, and after a while, when she opens them again, they're glassy with tears. "Hey," I say, holding her by the chin. "What are you thinking about?"
"Some mistakes can never be undone."
I nod. "There's plenty in my past that I'd erase if I could."
"But then you wouldn't be you." She touches my eyebrow and trails lower over the scruff on my cheek. "You wouldn't be able to see the world the way you do. You wouldn't touch people the way you do."
"You like the way I touch?"
She nods. "You touch me like you know everything inside me…all the good and the bad, and none of it matters—just the heat between us. Just our skin touching, our bodies joining. The sweat and the slickness."
It's been a long time since I had a lump in my throat. Maybe two decades since the last time my dad beat me, and I was too small to retaliate. Sandy's words burn in my neck because she's put her finger on exactly how it was to be with her.
For the time it took us to fuck, her touch sank deeper than I could ever have predicted. She's the angel, and I'm the devil. We fit together just right; two sides of a coin that I want to polish and slide into my back pocket for safekeeping.
"You're mine now, Sandy girl. I'll share you with my boys, but you're mine, and I'm yours. I'll never let anyone hurt you ever again."
Her eyes flutter closed and then open slowly like she's savoring the taste of my words on the tip of her tongue and relishing the flavor. "I believe you," she says eventually, hand trailing over the white wolf, “but what if it's one of your boys that does the hurting?"
My breath gets trapped in my lungs at what she's insinuating.
Everything—all of Tyler's ideas and the success of it—rests on unity. We take care of Sandy, and Sandy takes care of us. But if that unity isn't there, then more than just our relationship will fall apart. Friendships could be shattered.
"None of my brothers will hurt you," I say, with as much certainty as I can find.
Sandy smiles sadly. "It's happened before. It'll happen again."
My instinct is to draw her into my arms and hold her tightly, so I do it, rolling so I'm on my back and she's resting in the crook of my arm. "Baby, don't look for the bad before the good. Life can make us that way, but we gotta fight it. It's the only way to get through it all in one piece."
Sandy hides her face against my chest, and although her whole body is rigid and still, I know that she's crying.
I hold her until whatever she needed to get out of her system has passed. When she falls asleep in my arms, I wait until I know she's settled. Then I disentangle from her, tucking the comforter around her shoulders.
There's an angel in my bed—an angel with broken wings.
And although I should know better, I make a vow to her that I'll help her heal them. Whatever it takes.
16
TYLER
Greg’s message lights up my phone just after lunch.
It’s done.
Although it’s what I want, my gut clenches at the images that flood my mind, Greg stripping Sandy, her whimpering, letting him take out all of his tightly coiled rage on her body. I didn’t think it would happen so fast, but I’m an idiot because whatever Greg puts his mind to, he ends up achieving, good or bad.