What the fuck are you doing, Gage?
I turned around and headed into the kitchen. While I put the food into the microwave, waited for the ping, then took them out, I practiced how I would behave with her. This time, I would not let my emotions get carried away. One day, one day when I was free, I would turn up on her doorstep. I would explain everything to her, hopefully she would understand, and we’d start again. Her, me and little Jess.
I would have to fuck this up now, but I would make it right again when the time was right.
A few minutes later we were in bed, a tray of shrimp chow mein, fried dumplings and spring rolls spread out before us as our chopsticks dug into the boxes.
She ate in the most amusing way I’d ever encountered. It was no trouble for me to eat without spilling a single thing, but with each bite she put into her mouth, something simultaneously dropped off onto the bed. She kept on apologizing, continually promising me new sheets.
I definitely didn’t want her to go and buy me new sheets, especially not with her desperate financial situation. I wanted to put her at ease, so I said without thinking, “It’s not a big deal. You can take them home to launder, and bring them back later.”
She stopped then, her eyes softening, and I realized that I had just done one of the cruelest things to her … painted her a picture of hope that there would be more after tonight. How could I, when I didn’t even know if I would still have my head on my shoulders in a few weeks from now? A chill struck through me in that moment. For the first time in a long, long time, I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live and take care of her and little Jess.
“Why do they call you Bone?” she asked suddenly.
I looked up from my meal and shrugged. “The club’s president gave me that nickname. It’s from the movie, A Space Odyssey 2001.”
“I’ve seen that movie, but I don’t get the connection.”
“Remember that scene after the ape-men had contacted the monolith.”
“Kind of.”
“Okay, remember the one that sits on top of a pile of tapir bones. He picks one up and toys around with it, hitting harder and harder until he uses it to wallop a skull hard enough to shatter it into pieces. That was supposed to be the moment the ape-men invented the club. Something that allows him to strike harder than he could with his own hand. It also extends his reach and prevents the risk of injury that attacking with only his body would expose him to.”
She frowned. “You’re the bone in the President’s hand.”
I nodded and she cocked her head and studied me. Over the years, I had stopped hating the name, but with her in my life over the last few weeks, I was beginning to doubt more things than I wanted to. I was even starting to question the man I had become.
“And you’re okay with being the weapon in his hand?”
“I told you I have a plan. It’s part of the plan.”
“You know what I think. I don’t think of you as a weapon. I think of you as a great big heart hidden somewhere inside all that steel and bone.”
I didn’t need to tell her that she was the only one I had let close enough to even dream of suspecting something like that. Anyway, what I had wasn’t a big, warm heart. It was a dead one.
When she saw that I didn’t comment much on the topic, she moved on. “And what of the others in your club?” she asked. “What are their Nicknames?”
“Why do you want to know?” I asked quietly.
A sliver of hurt flashed through her eyes.
It made me want to hold her tight and rock her. Dammit, why was this so hard for me suddenly?
“I’m genuinely curious,” she added. “I’ve always heard that bikers have very colorful nicknames. Some are rugged, others are actually cool.” Another noodle slipped through her chopsticks and fell to the sheets. She sucked in air through her teeth with irritation at herself. “I was just wondering what ones your club members have.”
“I don’t know all of their names. There’s too many of them.” Once again I tried to evade her question.
“Well the ones that you know then,” she insisted.
I finally conceded. “Well, we have Rose,” I began.
She blinked with surprise. “What?
“He’s pretty,” I explained, and moved onto the next. “We have Tank because he’s shaped like a tank, and his cousin Shotgun, because he once accidentally shot himself with a shotgun. And Rooster—”
She laughed. “Why because he crows?”
I chuckled softly. “He has a horrible voice. Quite aggravating.”
She giggled prettily again and it felt like some kind of sweet warmth along my nerve endings as I continued, “We have Tattoo Man. He’s covered in a ridiculous amount of ink. We have Tyler, he’s the Sergeant at arms—”