He’s capable of so much more than Cillian allows him to try.
And he deserves more freedom than these cold walls allow.
Fortunately, Michael’s calm when I leave.
Pam, my neighbor, waves to me as I climb out of the car when I return home a little after ten.
“See you finally got the railing on your steps fixed,” she says, tipping her head in the direction of the porch.
I look over to my steps. Someone has repaired the railing that had been peppered with bullet holes. While I’m glad it’s fixed—the damage was a constant reminder that despite trying to escape the life, trouble found me anyway—I don’t know who fixed it.
There were no witnesses to the actual shooting, although a couple of neighbors heard it. I’ve been deliberately vague on details.
“You didn’t know about it?” she asks.
I guess I look as confused as I feel. “No.”
“Some big blond guy on a bike. Turned up two minutes before a delivery van arrived with the lumber. Pieces already cut to size. Took ’em about an hour to rip the old railing out and install the new one.”
Some big blond guy on a bike.
Spark.
And the fact the pieces were already cut means he’d been here to measure it as well.
I shrug, as if indifferent. “Nice of him to fix it up,” I say.
“Just watch you aren’t borrowing trouble, Iris,” she says. “You don’t want to end up owing them shit. My friend’s niece hung out over at their clubhouse. Pretty girl with a good heart. Now she’s a tweaker with two kids by two different men.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Having kids by different men isn’t uncommon. And unless they were holding her down and forcing drugs into her, she’s simply a grown-up who has to live with her life choices.
Instead of saying anything, I simply nod and head into the house. I bite down the urge to somehow get ahold of Spark to thank him and to tell him I don’t need him to look out for me. To tell him to leave me alone.
But then I realize I’m actually excited by the idea of talking to him.
So I kill the notion.
Letting sleeping dogs lie is best.
3
SPARK
The new moon is my friend, helping me hide in the shadows as I ease my Harley down the street.
“I know,” I mutter, patting the handlebars of my bike as she chomps at the bit. She likes to go fast, and this slow ride makes her groan with indignation. But the last thing I need is the roar of her gutsy and recently serviced engine to alert the street to my presence.
I don’t think of it as stalking. I sometimes let her see me in the day so she understands I’m still looking out for her, but not late at night. I just want her to know I have her back.
When I go off on runs for the Iron Outlaws, I don’t jones for her like an addict. Do some of the girls I hook up with on the road have dimples like she does? Sure. Do a couple have that cute sweetheart vibe? Wear innocent clothes instead of dressing like strippers? Obviously. Because all of a sudden, a girl with crotchless lingerie doesn’t get my dick half as excited as one with a bright yellow raincoat and a smile that would light the Vegas Strip.
I drag my bike over here, to her street, in the name of protection.
To watch.
Because my gut tells me Iris is important.
My head tells me she’s trouble.
And my heart . . . well, in the middle of the night, when I can’t sleep and the tequila hasn’t helped, I wonder if she may be the very glue to put me back together.
It’s my fault she was shot. I brought trouble to her door. All I’m doing now is making sure that trouble stays gone.
I pull up to the curb and kill the engine before reaching into the pocket of my cut to pull out my cigarettes. The crisp hiss as one ignites eases the pressure in my chest, a pressure I’ve been carrying since returning from Afghanistan. I’ve started to think the tightening is an early warning sign that something isn’t . . . safe.
Switch, our medic, says it’s PTSD, just like the therapist. But then, he also thinks I’m gonna bite the dust from the cigarettes I smoke. I told him I was going to die someday anyway. On my bike, like our old president did. In a turf war. Running some shit somewhere. A guy doesn’t become sergeant at arms for an MC for shits and giggles.
Life is tough.
There’s no one on the planet without problems.
Mine just seem to exist on the inside. People tell me I’m cool as a fucking cucumber, while under the surface I feel like I’m running for my life. Those desperate faces as the Taliban moved in around Kabul Airport haunt my dreams—the panic and screams and the knowledge that time was running out because multiple presidents in a row had fucked us and them over.
Iris’s bathroom light clicks on at the side of her house, and I know it’s gonna be three and a half minutes, give or take, before her silhouette appears by the window. I wonder what she does in that time. Peeing. Washing her face. Applying whatever shit makes her skin look so soft.
It’s such a soothing routine, calm, even. But I make the mistake of looking over at her porch, and even thinking about when she got shot there makes me feel sick. I don’t want her to have those memories. I know what recurring images of decimated bodies do to a person.
Fuckers from Los Reyes were hired to take out Prez’s family, and they planned to remove the witnesses, Iris included. But not on my watch.
I shake my head to remove the panic I feel, thinking about how I threw her to Clutch, my VP. I wanted the two of them safe and out of the way so I could return fire.
But she was shot anyway.
Some nights, I wake up in a cold sweat, thinking about what would have happened if that bullet had hit her femoral artery and she’d died. On others, I wake up from a sick dream where blood drips down the soft, pale flesh of her inner thigh while I fuck her on the pool table in the clubhouse. Even that visual doesn’t stop me from jerking off at the thought of her slender frame trapped beneath me.
Somehow, I can’t keep the people I care about alive.
Perhaps that’s why Iris feels like such an anomaly. So important.
She needs my help, and I can’t fail her.
Not stalking.
Protection.
Because I never want to see another tear slip from her eyes. Especially not tears caused by me.
Her silhouette appears at the window, turning around several times. I smile, wondering about what she’s doing. Plugging in her phone, forgetting to turn off the bathroom light, folding a towel, or tossing her robe.
“Three . . . two . . . one . . .” I murmur, finishing just as the light in her bathroom goes out.
I take one last draw on my cigarette and drop the butt down the storm drain. As I do, my phone vibrates.
“Yo,” I say to King.
“Little birdie tells me you left the clubhouse same time tonight.”
“Felt like some fresh air.”
King huffs. “Told you to stay the fuck away.”
“From fresh air?”
“Clever fucker. Remember how you got your road name.”
As a prospect, I pulled some stupid shit that I’d visualized going differently. King’s dad, our old president, had asked which bright spark was responsible. I squared my shoulders, faced him like a man, and told him I was the bright spark. It stuck.