"He's someone who keeps his ear to the ground," I supplied, shrugging. "Sometimes he's useless. Other times, he is the only person who knows anything. He's usually worth the quick walk down the street to track him down."
"Alright. You want to head out now?"
"Might as well," I agreed, handing Cam my coffee to shrug into my jacket. "But try to let me do the talking. He's jumpy about new people. Once accused me of bringing some random homeless guy with me. Never mind that that guy has lived on that street for years. He's just paranoid like that."
"Got it," he agreed, falling into step with me as we moved out into the hall, turning to watch the elevator doors close. "Can I ask something that might not be, ah, delicate?"
"Alright," I agreed, brows drawing together as I watched his profile.
"Why doesn't Cam speak?"
"That is a long - and short - story. I, unfortunately, only know the short part. He simply doesn't. I don't know if he can't or just doesn't want to. But he has no interest in learning sign language or writing things down either. He just..."
"He gets his point across," Roderick finished for me.
"Exactly."
"Alright. I was just curious. We have a guy in the club - our road captain - who doesn't speak much. Only ever like five or six words together at any time."
"It is interesting what trauma can do to a person," I observed as the doors slid open to reveal a couple with three kids from a floor below our loft - people who didn't mind our noise because it often sounded like their children were having contests to see which could scream or slam doors the loudest, effectively cutting off the line of questioning just as his mouth had been opening to likely say something.
"So, Roderick," I started as the silence on the walk started to get awkward. "How does a nice boy like you end up as a gun-running biker?"
"Nice boy like me, huh?" he asked, smirking slightly.
"No. I get it. You flash those dimples around out drinking with buddies, get the skirts to lift, the panties to fall. You make money by putting illegal firearms on the street. You're bad in that way, but I don't know, I get a family vibe from you. You have people out there who care about you. People who have families like that don't usually end up as bikers."
"I have a mom and sisters," he told me, easy with the information, not something you often found in our line of work. Everyone liked their secrets. They kept themselves - and their loved ones - safer. "We came over from Puerto Rico with nothing but a bag of clothes. My mom worked her fingertips raw when we were younger. I needed to find a way to provide for them."
"I get that," I agreed, nodding.
I didn't have a family to speak of, barely even remembered what any of mine had looked like even when they had been around, but despite all that, I did understand.
"That's what you have going on, right? With Cam and your girl? You take care of them."
"We take care of each other," I corrected because we did, we all helped one another in different ways, playing to our strengths to pick up the slack on the others' weaknesses.
"Yeah, but you're the primary. The glue," he insisted. "If you weren't there, that whole thing would fall apart."
"I don't like the sound of that," I admitted.
See, I didn't live in a world of certainties. And while none of us did, no one knew when a wayward tractor trailer might veer into our lane on the highway or when a bit of food might get lodged in our throat, or our hearts might give in, it was different for people like me, people who flirted with death for a living. I had no guarantees that I would make it through my next job. And I had always imagined - hoped - that even without me, Cam and Astrid would be there for each other. And, in my heart of hearts, I did believe that. Cam loved Astrid, would never let any harm come to her if it could be avoided. But if I wasn't around to push for normalcy, to decorate for holidays, to make sure we got downtime here and there, that we communicated, yeah, I didn't know how long the two of them would be able to go on the same way we always had.
And I hated that idea.
I didn't mind being the glue, but I really hoped there were some staples or nails or goddamned buttons to help hold it all together.
"Are you the primary?" I asked, wanting to steer the conversation away from myself a bit.
"Ah, nah. I'd like to say I was. But that is my mother. If she didn't nag us all about getting together, I probably wouldn't find the time to see my sisters half as much as I do now. Not because I don't want to see them, just...