We slid to a stop against the curb in front of my parents’ house. I mean, I guess it was still my house, too, but it didn’t feel like it, you know? I mean, I know I was still my parents’ child or whatever, but I was eighteen, an adult, and I felt like I had outgrown this place. That it was stifling and time to spread my wings.
God, was that evident the second I walked through the door.
“Just where the fuck have you been?”
“Babe!” My mother immediately admonished my father.
“With Slice, out looking for Dice,” I said as Slice closed the screen door behind us and I edged further into the living room so Slice could shut out the cold.
“Smoke is a grown-ass man and can take care of himself. You’re my eighteen-year-old daughter, and one with a fuckin’ curfew!”
“Zander!” my mother snapped, and I sighed, hanging my head.
“I’m sorry, but don’t you dare get mad at Slice! I begged him to help me go look. He went into the bars while I stayed on the sidewalk.”
“Jesus, fuck.” My dad put his hands on his hips and shook his head, looking from me to Slice and back to me again. “Get your asses in here and sit down. Babe, make them something hot to drink and tell me what the fuck is going on with our boy.”
“That’s more like it,” my mother muttered, but all the same, she went into the kitchen – more than likely to fix Slice and me some hot chocolate.
“At least she’s out running around with you,” my dad rumbled, and Slice and I frowned practically in unison.
“Not sure what you’re implying there, bro,” Slice declared.
“Me either,” I said darkly.
“Which is just the way I fuckin’ like it.” He shot us both a shit-eating grin as he took a seat himself.
“Zander!” My mother stood up from where she was getting a pot out of the bottom cupboard and rolled her eyes at my dad. I smiled at her and she winked at me as soon as Dad wasn’t looking.
“Seriously. Sit down,” he ordered and even went so far as to kick the chair across from him out from under the table. I swallowed hard. My dad never hit me or Dante, but he sure had the occasion to yell – mostly at my brother – and Uncle Reaver had patched more than a few holes in the drywall.
I hated it when my daddy got that mad. It genuinely scared the hell out of me. I was glad he didn’t do it very often, but I never really could tell what would set him off. Sometimes it was something big, but a few times, it hadn’t been. Still, like I said, he’d never laid a hand on us kids or our mom. Although, it scared my mom hardcore when he got mad, too. I guess because grandpa used to hit her.
I’d only found that out recently and it broke my heart because grandpa loved us kids so much. I mean, I would have never guessed.
“First things first.” My dad fixed his dark eyes on me and I bit my bottom lip. “My house, my rules, kid. What time are you supposed to be home?” He raised his eyebrows, and I felt my shoulders drop.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But Sage—”
“Is a grown-ass man and doesn’t need your coddling.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking under his bulk as he crossed his heavily tattooed arms over his black tee, which strained over his shoulders and arms.
I sniffed and my mom came around and set a cup of hot chocolate in front of me.
“We were worried about you,” she said gently and touched the back of my shoulder.
“So worried, you didn’t text?” I asked, sullenly.
“Hey!” my dad barked sharply, and I jumped slightly. My mistake. If it was one thing my dad didn’t go for it was even the slightest perception of disrespect toward my mother.
“Zander,” my mom said gently. “She has a valid point.”
My dad shifted in his seat and sighed.
“Take your hot chocolate and go to your room,” my dad said tiredly.
“Dad!” I cried. “I’m eighteen! Not some—”
“My house, my rules! I want to talk to Slice, so go to your room!”
“But Slice was going to tell me—”
“Room! Now!”
My mom and I jumped practically in unison and she swept over, depositing a mug in front of Slice before nudging me to my feet and thrusting mine into my hands.
“Go,” she urged gently. “Or you’ll never hear the end of it.”
I went, for her sake, so there would be no more shouting, feeling a little broken and a lot dejected inside. Slice was supposed to tell me when Sage texted!
I shut my bedroom door and pulled my purse over my head, hanging it on the set of hooks that were held by a bracket that went over the door. I set my mug on the bedside table and my thick scarf and winter jacket followed my purse onto the hooks.
I sulked, changed into my pajamas, and sulked some more. Wasn’t long until my worry had me in knots and I started to cry softly into my cocoa.
I sucked in a sharp breath at the sound of a slip of paper sliding under my door. I went for it and opened it.
He’s fine, he’s at the club.
It was signed with a cursive ‘S’ that looked like a jagged slice on the page.
I sniffed and smiled, folding the paper into quarters and depositing it in my wastebasket by my bed.
At least I would sleep tonight.
3
Sage…
The day was crisp, cold, the sky clear. We were taking a ride as a club and I was toward the back of the pack. I smiled and bumped fists with Slice next to me as we made our way around a bend, climbing into the hills.
Shouts, the scream of metal, sparks spraying across the ground far ahead of us, the whine down of engines as the rest of us downshifted and watched in horror as two riders slid across the asphalt. One slammed hard up against the fuckin’ guardrail. We pulled over, a lot of us just stopping and dismounting.
The confusion, the horror, the anguish in my chest erupting as a masculine scream rent the air.
“Nooooo!” I sat up in bed, in my club room, chest heaving, pressing fingertips into my eye sockets, scrubbing sleep and the nightmare’s imagery out of them. But there was only so much I could do on that front.
I sat in my bed, in the dark, chest heaving, dewed with sweat, jumping as the heater kicked on and sighed.
I flopped back and stared at the deep blue shadows along the ceiling from the high window, willing my heart rate to slow its ass down.
Think of something pleasant, something positive, I thought to myself – a suggestion Reaver had made when the subject of my nightmares had come up one night.
Except I didn’t have anything, I didn’t think I wanted anything.
I couldn’t fathom loving someone, anything more than life itself. Feelings that ran that deep scared the fucking shit out of me… and so I didn’t. I kept myself to myself and that was that.
I heaved a sigh and closed my eyes, the image of soulful deep brown eyes framed in copper curls coming unbidden to my mind. Of Eden’s face, stricken with such worry, the flood of relief that smoothed her pale features into something almost… angelic.
I opened my eyes to banish the image. I was almost fuckin’ thirty. She was barely eighteen – it was never going to happen.
Never say never, little brother…