Masked & Miserable: A Novella of the Sacred Hearts MC (Book 3.5) (10 page)

“Andy,” his voice faltered.

“I’ll get one of the girls to drive you home,” I mumbled
again and I was out the door. I found Ash and Hayden and Hayden slipped out to
drive Aaron home while Ashton held me while I cried. Shit this sucked. This
sucked fucking hard.

Disney…

I got out of the back seat of Trig and Ash’s red Jeep and
was immediately assaulted by the acrid burning smell. The rest of the MC had
stayed back at the clubhouse. It was just me, Trig, Ash and Rev. The shop had
finally been cleared of investigators and we were here to listen to what the
fire marshal and cops had to say.

It was mid-morning drifting on towards afternoon and the
autumn sky was as bright and blue and cheery as could be. We’d met as a club to
decide what to do after Aaron had gone and Doc had arrived, deciding that it
was pretty much on like Donkey Kong with The Suicide Kings. They wanted to fuck
with us, well we weren’t going to take it lying down. Almost all of the out of
town Sacred Hearts Nomads and Chapter members who had answered Dragon and
Dray’s call had thrown their lot in with us. Our number of brothers swelled to
where we were now more closely matched with The Suicide Kings and plans were
under way to take them down a notch or two. For the time being though, those
plans didn’t include me, Trig or Zand- Revelator. We had our livelihoods to
rebuild and from the looks of things they wouldn’t be rebuilt
here.
 

The shop looked like something out of the Gaza strip, not
like something smack dab in the middle of Anytown, U.S.A. The front of the shop
was just, gone… The front of the building just blown out. Insulation hanging
like ribbon and charred timbers jagged and threatening. I felt bad. The
insurance company on one side of us and the sandwich shop on the other both had
to close up shop. The building as a whole had to come down. Trig, Rev and me
waded through the wreckage to our respective work areas. There wasn’t anything
for Ashton to salvage from the front desk, the front desk was just gone. She
picked her way carefully over the blackened streaks and chunks of cinderblock
littering the black and white checkered floor and picked up one of the water
damaged framed news articles about Open Road off the scarred linoleum.

Tears sprang up in her golden eyes and she shook before
breaking into a sob and Trig was just there. His arms went around his woman and
he pulled her into the most loving and protective embrace that I felt the loss
of Aaron like a knife in the gut. I pushed a filing cabinet out of my way and
stepped into my alcove which was miraculously mostly untouched. I opened my
tool box and everything was in it, just fine. I picked up Rusty’s tattoo gun
and clutched it to my chest and felt overcome with emotion myself.

The heavy duty Husky tool box I used to store all my tattoo
shit had protected it from the blast and the fire hadn’t reached over here. The
tools of my trade were intact and the memories attached to them were too. It
was the only glimmer of hope to have come from this so far. I looked around me
and at my brothers and friends and felt just as blasted apart as the damned
shop but this wouldn’t be the first time I’d had to tear down and build from
the beginning. Hopefully it
would be
the last though because at the
tender age of twenty-two I was fucking tired of rebuilding from the ground up,
only to have my shit knocked down and forced to rebuild again.

“Hey guys!” I heard Rev call out, “Thermo-fax is good!” I
felt my shoulders slump in relief. That would have been a bitch to replace.

“My guns are cool, Disney, what about yours?” Trig called.

“All my shit’s cool. Protected by the industrial tool box
you guys recommended,” I called back.

“My guns are toast, but most of the piercing shit is good,”
Zander called.

We all met up out in the center of the shop floor, Ashton clinging
to Trig.

“I’ma call Dray have him get a U-Haul and bring it. We need
to get this shit out to the parking lot before these guys say we can’t be in
here anymore.” We made a plan, agreed to it and got our asses to work. Which
sucked hard for me with how much I hurt but at the same time was fucking
perfect. It kept my mind off Aaron.

When we’d gotten to the shop, my first priority had been to
salvage as much of my livelihood as I could. My second priority was laying on
her side dented to hell and back and left me wondering if she would even start.
I couldn’t hoist her upright if I wanted to in my current state so one of the
FNG’s (Fucking New Guys) did it for me.

“Man it’s a damn shame. You had her lookin’ brand spankin’
new. Saw her one of my first nights here and been meaning to ask you about
her.” I looked at the guy and blinked. His strawberry blonde hair was shaved so
close to his head you could see scalp and he was built, the shoulders of his
leather jacket and the cut overlaying them straining. Dray had shown up with a
U-Haul box truck with a pile of the nomads and outlying chapter guys, all
looking at patching over into our chapter, trailing behind it.

Everett, who’d been driving the truck, was standing nearby
with her best friend Mandy, they were comforting Ashton and helping her to box
up what papers they could out of the shop’s dented and waterlogged filing
cabinets.

“What’s your name?” I asked. I’m sure he’d told me but fuck
if I could remember. He smiled and held out his hand.

“Red-Thirteen,” he said. I raised an eyebrow.

“Disney,” I took his hand and his shake was firm, “That’s
going to get confusing as fuck. Revelator calls her Red.” I said indicating
Mandy who was carefully and efficiently sorting papers according to what Ashton
was telling her.

“Naw, just call me Thirteen or R.T., it’s not my first rodeo
being around other ‘Reds’,” he said.

“No disrespect, but how the hell did you come by such a long
road name?” I asked as we inspected the damage to Devi. I’d decided to keep the
name Aaron had given her.

“Kind of embarrassing actually,” he started but didn’t get
to finish. Dragon came over with another new guy.

“Thirteen, borrow you?” Dragon asked.

“Yeah what’s up P.?” they wandered a distance away, heads
together and another new guy, who introduced himself quietly as Blue, helped
Rev walk my thrashed bike up into the back of the old pick up Dragon had rolled
up in. I heaved a sigh. I had no idea how I was going to pay rent let alone how
I was going to fix my bike. Hell my car was dead in a parking stall back at my
apartment.

“Fuck,” I swore low and hard.

“What’s the matter Puddin’?” Zander asked.

“Let’s see, I’m out of a job, out of a car, out of a bike,
out of a
boyfriend
and now that I’m out of a job I’m going to be out of
a place to live because I can’t make my fucking rent on what I’ve made so far
this month.” I pushed my hands through my hair, the cast on my left wrist hard
against my scalp and I held the back of my head, fingers laced. I straightened
up tall and let out an explosive breath. Revelator looked at me, his dark eyes
sorrowful.

“Didn’t know about Aaron, I’m sorry man,” he looked at his
red Converse high tops and back up, “We’ll find another place to set up shop.
Can’t do anything about the job until then but you got family in me and Trig
before any of this shit went down. You got much shit to move?” I blinked.

“Just my tool box and bike, both are loaded I think,” I
said.

“No, dipshit, from your apartment,” Rev said exasperated.

“What are you getting at?” I asked.

“I got an empty room at the house you can have. Your
apartment is a piece of shit and not worth the money you been dumping in to
living in it. We got the truck, let’s dump the shop stuff off in my garage and
go get your shit while we got it. Get it all done at once, Brother.” He held
out his hand and I blinked in confusion.

“You want my faggot ass to
move in with you
?” I asked
incredulous.

“One, don’t ever call yourself that again,” he said sharply,
“Two, you got a better idea? I know you been living paycheck to paycheck. My
place is straight up mine. It doesn’t look like much but Hell, been in it by
myself since my granddaddy died and he left it to me, having a roommate might
not be such a bad thing.” I blinked stupidly for a second.

“You want me to move in with you?” I repeated, skeptically.

“Dude, Squick,” I flinched at the old nickname. I didn’t want
to be that guy anymore. Revelator pushed on, “Tattooing is all you got, it’s
what you do, it’s fucking what you’re
good
at, fuck you’re one of the
best I’ve ever seen. Me, I got tattooing and piercing, sure but I can make more
off one fight than I can spending an entire month sticking people with
needles!” He looked at me and I nodded slowly. Everything was this total
nightmare whirlwind and I feel like I had yet to fucking land but I already
knew I wasn’t in fucking Kansas anymore.

“Okay,” I said, because what other choice did I have? I
didn’t have enough money for rent and rent was due in two weeks. I wasn’t going
to find a new job, or open a new shop with these guys or make enough money
doing either inside two weeks so why fucking fight it?

“Okay?” he asked.

“Okay,” I affirmed.

Okay.

Disney…

I’d spent the last three days with Ashton in Rev’s garage
sorting through the shit we’d salvaged from the shop, we were getting nowhere
with the paperwork. Zander was training in his home gym to get back into
fighting for the time being and Trig, well Trig could do work from home under
the table, even though he didn’t have to. Ashton more than had them covered.
Shelly’s genius with numbers had seen the money she’d gotten from her douche
bag ex-husband’s death grow rather than shrink, even with dropping a huge chunk
of change into Ev and Mandy’s shop and the clubhouse renovations.

We were worried about Ev and Mandy’s shop, even though
everything had gone through Ashton and the club was nowhere near it. The club
hadn’t had a whole lot to do with Open Road Ink either, they’d just provided
startup funds in the tattoo shop’s beginning when the club had been looking for
legitimate ventures to go into after Dragon’s Old Lady had been killed. Open
Road Ink had been one of those ventures, Open Road Garage had been another.

Now I was sitting on the edge of my new bed in my new room
at Zander’s with my cellphone in my hands watching the cursor on the white
screen blink off and on, my thumbs poised over the touch screen keyboard. I
missed Aaron. I wanted so badly to see if this was something we could talk
about, something we could fix or deal with… or try to anyways.

I hadn’t heard anything from him since we parted ways at the
club, and that sucked. Hard. I’d been staring at my phone for the last fifteen
minutes, keeping the screen from going dark, trying to think of what the Hell
to say when it buzzed in my hands. It was a text message from Aaron.

Aaron: I don’t want it to end like this. Please. Meet me?

My breath caught in my lungs and my thumbs twitched… I
waited a heartbeat, then two, then cautiously tapped out a response. It was
awkward holding the phone with the black cast on my wrist.

Okay. Where?

I held my breath and scraped my lower lip through my teeth
while I anxiously waited for a reply. The sound of my lip ring clicking against
my teeth offset by the clanking weights from Rev’s home gym.

Aaron: My place?

I wanted that but at the same time, I didn’t know if that
was such a good idea. I pursed my lips. I couldn’t think of anyplace else more
neutral. I couldn’t and wouldn’t do this here after just moving in and I
wouldn’t take it to the club house either so I gave in.

Fine. I need to find a ride. You going anywhere?

The message came back immediately.

Aaron: No. I’ll be waiting.

“Zander!” I called out and heard his bellow from his home
gym.

“What!?”

“Borrow your car!?”

“Yeah! Keys are on the hook inside the front door! You
scratch her I beat you! Got it!?” he called back.

“Got it!” I affirmed and heard weights clang to the floor.

I pulled on some fresh clothes and was just straightening
from pulling on my boots when his compact frame filled the doorway, shoulders
nearly touching the door jamb to either side of him.

“Going to see Aaron?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said shrugging into my jacket and cut.

“Good luck man. I mean it about the car,” he turned to the
side so I could go out past him.

“I know, thanks.” I went out to the living room and
retrieved the keys to his Chevelle off the hook and slipped out into the rain.
I took off my cut and folded it neatly over my arm before getting into the car.
The rain pattered softly on the roof, the inside windows fogging around the
edges. I started the 68 Chevelle SS and it roared to life. Zander had put a lot
of love, time and care into restoring her. She was a beautiful cherry red with
white racing stripes and I was suddenly nervous about taking her out of the
driveway, but I did it anyways.

The drive to Aaron’s felt like a long one. My heart
throbbing painfully in my chest, my cheeks hot as I filled from the bottom to
the top with a soul crushing anxiety about how things were going to unfold
here. I pulled into a free parking space next to Aaron’s Subaru and cut the
engine. I wanted to get back to work somehow, somewhere and build myself my
bike. My Mazda sat at Open Road Garage and would be fixed and sold. I didn’t
mind riding in all weather for the time being if it meant I had another project
that would net me something like this at its end.

I sat for a long time, frozen in my seat, hands sliding back
and forth over the black steering wheel. Out to the sides and back in, out to
the sides and back in. I didn’t know what it was about Aaron that tied me in
freaking knots so hard after barely knowing him. I couldn’t explain it, I
didn’t think it really
needed
explaining. Just something about being
near him soothed my soul. When I was in his presence everything felt right and
natural and, I don’t know… I just felt like when I was with him or near him
that I was the kind of me that I always wanted to be.

I took a deep breath and let it out slow and reached for the
door handle. I got out of the car, pulling my cut from the passenger seat with
me and I stared down at the singed patches on its back for a moment before shrugging
it on. I locked the car and took the steps to the second floor two at a time.
About four doors down from Aaron’s I heard it and it slowed my pace. Music, but
not just any kind of music, the mournful tones of a Cello drifted down the open
aired corridor to reach me.

I’d never gotten the chance to hear him play, at least not
until now. It made me feel incredibly sad to realize that this was how it was,
the first time I got to hear it and in a matter of moments it could be the very
last time I ever got to. I stepped carefully up the hall and rested my forehead
against his front door and listened for a time. The way he played was flawless.
Perfect and deliberate and just so rich and beautiful, like the man himself.
The piece was incredibly sad and I felt a little guilty that I didn’t have a
freaking clue what it was. I mean, music was so much a part of Aaron’s life.
The kind of man he was with should be interested in what his boyfriend played
shouldn’t he?

I vowed right then and there that if we somehow made it
through the next few minutes into something resembling a relationship that I
would learn the difference between classical composers. I mean I loved music
and musicals but was a little lost on the difference between Beethoven and
Chopin and the lot.

I took a deep breath to steady myself and still my racing
thoughts and raised my hand to knock. The sound my knuckles made against the
door was sharp and loud and immediately the beautiful music stopped. I took a
step and a half back so Aaron could see me through the peep hole. It darkened,
then lightened and I could hear him throwing back the bolt and chain and then
suddenly he was there, beautiful and lean, the deep dark wells of his eyes
blinking beneath that dyed shock of fiery hair and I ached to reach out and
pull him to me. To kiss him, to touch and hold him but I did none of those
things, instead I thrust my hands into my jeans pockets and pursed my lips and
waited to see what he would do.

I didn’t want to open myself up to anymore hurt than I was
already feeling, but that was a lot harder than it sounded with him standing
there in his worn white tee and comfortable butter soft jeans. He was barefoot
and scrumptious and the pain in my chest was worsening by the second as I
fought my feelings down and tried valiantly to thrust them into a box, lock it
up and toss the key. It’d only been three days and I fucking missed him like
it’d been months.

“Hi,” he said softly and pushed his glasses up higher on his
nose.

“Hi,” I grunted back. He held the door wider and stretched,
his shirt lifting to give me a peek at the flat expanse of his stomach and I
closed my eyes and dropped my head, fixing my gaze resolutely onto the carpet.
I brushed past him and his hand shot out and closed around the arm of my jacket.
I froze.

“Andy, I’m so sorry,” he said and I nodded, mutely. I was
sorry too. Sorry that I couldn’t just change. That good, bad or indifferent I
was committed to the club and my brothers in it and sometimes that came with
some real ugly and heavy shit… Like The Suicide Kings.

“Please talk to me?” he asked softly and closed the door
behind us.

“I’m a little torn in two I guess,” I said, throat
tightening. He drew me along with him and we sat on the end of his bed, which
really was the only place to sit.

“Talk to me,” he implored.

“I like you Aaron. As impossible and scary and just so
damned fast as it is, I might even love you a little, but at the same time, I’m
committed and love every single person in my club and I won’t leave. I
can’t
leave.” I forced my eyes to his which were full of compassion and something
else I couldn’t quite define. He picked up my hands in his.

I pressed on, “I don’t want anything to happen to you Aaron.
I want so much to be with you but I can’t and won’t leave them to do it, and if
letting you be is what it takes to keep you safe then I will but I really,
really don’t want to.” Damn it. I was going to cry. I felt the tears well up
hot and immediate and just didn’t have it in me to be the strong one this time
because I really wanted this. I really wanted a shot at having a partner in
crime, someone to share laughs and love and just everything that my boss and
friend Trigger had with Ashton and my mentor Reaver had with his wife Hayden.
At the same time I had no right to drag him in to such a potentially volatile
and violent situation.

Aaron pulled me into him and held me, making soothing
noises. He pulled back to search my face and pressed his lips to mine and my
misery was complete because to me, the kiss tasted like good-bye. I rested my
forehead against his, savoring the moment if it were to be my last when he
surprised me.

“I don’t want that either. I want to try. What happened
scared the piss out of me; I thought you were dead, I thought I was going to
get there and that you were going to be gone before I ever really had the
chance…” he choked up, took a deep breath, held it and let it out and said,
“I’m willing to risk it if you are.”

Our mouths crashed together, I couldn’t be sure if it was me
that kissed him or him that kissed me and it suddenly wasn’t at all important.
What was important was that finally, someone was willing to take a chance on
me. The real me. The unmasked and vulnerable me, the whole package and not just
the parts that suited them. First my club and now this man, this beautiful,
beautiful man.

We made love, and with every kiss and touch and lick I
silently vowed to Aaron that I would do everything in my power to keep him safe
from the mess the club was in. To keep everyone safe that I could. Since the
Lake, it had sort of become the unspoken rule that I was the defender of the
women, the last line of defense should shit get real and I was okay with that.
I was more than okay with that because the girls mattered to me. Aaron mattered
to me and for all intents and purposes he was considered one of the girls by club
standards.

We stayed in and woke to the shrill ring of my phone the
next morning. I answered it on the fourth ring.

“Yeah?” I groused into the phone.

“Hey Puddin’ you work things out with yer man?” Rev asked
and I smiled as Aaron’s dark eyes met mine, an answering smile sparkling in
their depths.

“Yeah,” I answered, “I think we’re straight.” Aaron kissed
my chest and I felt a contented sigh escape me.

“Good, then can you bring back my fucking car!?” I barked a
laugh and Aaron laughed too, having heard Rev loud and clear.

“Can I get some breakfast?” I asked.

“No,” was the short answer and he hung up. Okay, he had a
right to be irritated I guess. That didn’t stop me from spending long minutes
kissing Aaron or from taking an extra-long shower with him though.