There was a story there but we didn’t know each other well enough to share those kinds of secrets. She got in her car, followed me home and I welcomed her inside my apartment. “Now go get clean,” she said, “and I’ll wait out here.”
“Sure,” I said uncertainly as she began to look at my few books and pictures.
It didn’t take me long to scrub the kitchen stink off me and it had very little to do with the fact that Teddy was wandering loose inside my apartment. I didn’t waste time in the shower, ever.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t snoop,” she assured me when I returned to the living room. “I prefer to pry the info from my prey.”
The gleam in her eyes would’ve frightened me if there were anything remotely interesting about me. “You’d be disappointed.”
“Somehow I doubt that. Especially considering the energy I saw zapping between you and Savior.”
I shook my head. “Don’t even think about it. There’s nothing there and there’s nothing interesting about me.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
I guessed this was what I got for wanting friends.
Chapter 8
Savior
“You’re an old fucker if you need a pee break again. We’re practically back in Mayhem now,” I chortled, setting the stand on my bike and reaching for the gas nozzle.
Max glared at me and I just laughed back at him. He damn near ripped the cap off the bottle of water, probably imagining it was my head.
We were on our way back from a gun show just outside Reno, but the prospects had probably already made it back to the clubhouse with the guns.
“Fuck you, it’s ten thousand goddamn degrees out here.” He chugged one bottle before he stomped inside the gas station and came back out with two more bottles. “Too fucking hot!”
“Relax and drink your water. I won’t tell Jana she’s marrying a senior citizen as long as you promise to be generous with those early bird specials.” I laughed again when he flipped me off. “You ready to get married, man?”
Max’s face softened, setting the bottled on his saddle. “Fuck yeah. I mean, me and Jana are solid. I can’t wait to make her mine, you know? She saved my life, wouldn’t let me get lost in my bullshit.”
His smile was so genuine, so sincere it brought up a memory I hadn’t thought about in too long. The last time I saw my mother.
I was eleven and Mom was crying, thick black mascara or maybe it was eyeliner streamed down her cheeks, so she looked like the mess she was. Her latest loser du jour had threatened to leave because he hadn’t signed on “to be saddled with a brat.”
Strong words from a man who sat in his underwear all day before sneaking out after midnight to play pool and sell dope.
She was filled with tears and a genuine horror I’d never seen before. The thought of that asshole — Cal was his name — leaving had her so filled with fear she could barely form words. Then it got worse. She begged. On her goddamn knees, she begged that fucker not to leave her. And he looked at me with a gleam in his eyes and drew one side of his mouth up in a snarl and told her simply: “It’s him or me.”
I knew my fate before she even turned to look at me. Her eyes pleading with me to understand. I knew she wanted me to give her some sign it was okay to choose that prick over me. Even at eleven I was a stubborn little shit. I didn’t want her to go with him or to leave me, but even as a kid I knew I couldn’t let her see it. I couldn’t let her or Cal see that weakness.
I went to my room and when I came out the next morning, they were both gone. No note or memento, just a coffee can with three hundred and forty-six dollars and two rolls of quarters.
“Damn man, where’d you go?”
Max’s voice pulled me from memories best left buried. “Some different variation of hell.”
“No shit,” he commiserated. Max was all fucked up with PTSD when he came to Mayhem looking for his brother, but with the help of a head shrinker and a hot little blonde, the man was weeks away from getting married. “Never goes away, but when the day ends and there are more good memories than bad, it’s a good fucking day.”
That was about all most of us could hope for. More good than bad, because there was no fucking chance the memories went away. They sometimes hid for a while, took a break until you thought that shit was behind you, then they crept up on you like a fucking sniper’s bullet. “Waking up to a beautiful woman doesn’t hurt.”
“Definitely doesn’t.” He flashed a satisfied grin. “What’s up with you and Mandy?”
“Nothing. Why do y
ou ask?” He grinned like he knew something but Mandy didn’t strike me as the girl talk kind of woman.