“Hades is my brother—not to mention the president of our Louisiana chapter. If Persy told you something, asked you for something, you need to let me know right now. Crossing him is the same as crossing me.”
“She told me I should do what you say. And then, she told me you were downstairs,” I repeat firmly.
I’d like to accompany that statement with a bite of food like we're just having a casual conversation, and I’m completely unbothered. But it takes everything in my power just to keep my voice level. I don’t have the courage to test whether my hand would shake like my voice wants to if I attempted to add fork work.
“That's all she said to you?” Waylon asks. His face is hard as stone. “You're sure?”
I nod quickly. I’m more than willing to lie for Persy, but I hate the way Waylon scans me as if he has some sixth sense and can tell I’m not being entirely truthful.
I remember how he guessed that Jonathan had dumped me and how he basically interrogated the story out of me.
“So what's this Griffin told me about your last name being Fairgood?” I say to avoid him asking me any more questions about Stephanie, who apparently can’t have so much as a heavily cloaked conversation without Hades getting suspicious.
“Fairgood? Like Colin Fairgood? Are you two related?"
Waylon grits his jaw like he’s deciding how to answer.
But Meemaw’s voice calls out first from her bedroom, “They sure are. They're cousins. Waylon’s mother and Colin's father were sister and brother. The Fairgoods have been bikers since after World War II, you know. And Colin’s brother, Dixon, and their cousin, Mason—he’s the son of the other Fairgood brother—they’re the ones who helped Waylon buy this big patch of land after what happened with their club.”
“What happened to their club?” I ask, turning to look over my shoulder at Meemaw’s closed but apparently very thin door. I knew about Dixon, who’d legally changed his name to Woods Mello, from the Medical Reinvention docu-drama. But this wasn’t a detail they’d covered on the show.
“Oh well, that other club didn't truck much with Blacks, which became a problem when Dixon fell in love with that girl from that one show about rap stars and their families. I don't watch it myself. I'm more of a Devil Riders kind of woman. But anyway, after Dixon decided he was all done with that, the feds raided their compound in Tennessee.”
“And I guess Dixon felt some sort away about how the Fairgood brothers had treated the Fairgood sisters because he gave everything the feds didn’t take to their Fairgood cousins, Waylon and Hades. And Waylon and Hades used that investment to make the Ruthless Reapers bigger and better.”
Forget my pancakes. I’m all the way turned around in the chair now. “Wait, wait, wait—Waylon and Hades are really brothers? I thought they were just calling each other that.”
“Cousins, actually, on their mothers’ side. The Fairgood sisters weren’t so discriminatory against the other races—that’s why they got disavowed by the Fairgood brothers. They didn’t like it too much when Waylon’s mom got knocked up by a Hispanic. But you know, the younger generation fixed all of that. And after they all made up, Waylon found this big patch of land and bought it for our club. That’s why we’re all living here today.”
I glance out the front window at the rest of the RV Park with new eyes. “So, this is like, some kind of Ruthless Reapers trailer park town?”
“Not exactly.” Meemaw finally gives up the charade and opens the bedroom door she was probably standing behind with her ear cupped the entire time. “The Ruthless Reapers have a compound on the north side of the woods. But Waylon owns all this land for miles and miles, so when he said he was starting the town, a lot of us came over and joined him. Older people like me, the club doctor, and of course, a few of the Reapers with wives and kids who were looking to settle down someplace not so noisy and rowdy.”
“So, this is a town for people who no longer want to be Reapers?” I ask.
“Hell, no. You're always a Reaper until you are buried in the ground, one way or another,” Waylon answers.
I jolt. I was so intent on getting all of the tea from Meemaw, I forgot Waylon was still here, sitting at the table with me.
I turn back around to ask him, “But you started this town. Why? Because you wanted to settle down like the other Reapers?”
Waylon grabs a napkin from the stand on the table and swipes it over his mouth before saying, “I got shit to do. You need anything before I go?”
I jut my chin forward. “You mean other than money and a ride to the closest bus station so I can go back to Delaware and deal with the mess you made of my life?”