Masked & Miserable: A Novella of the Sacred Hearts MC (Book 3.5) (4 page)

I went into my apartment and threw some clothes into a
backpack along with my good art pencils and sketch book and checked the time.
Shit. Four missed calls from Zander. I hadn’t remembered putting my phone on
silent. I called him back.

“What’s up?” I asked as soon as he answered.

“Nothin’ now, got it handled. Where the fuck were you?” he
asked.

“Nowhere, sleeping didn’t realize I had my phone on silent,”
I lied and he sighed.

“Yeah, bullshit. Your bike was outside the shop. False alarm
last night, fucking system was on the fritz again and you live closer. Tried to
get you to go out there and check on it. I ended up going,” he said.

“Oh.” I didn’t have a clever comeback for that one.

“So seriously where were you?” he asked, curiosity lacing
his tone.

“Went out drinkin’ with a buddy of mine, racked out on his
couch,” I said.

“Mmm,” he grunted, “Why didn’t you just say so kid?”

“I’m hung over and it ain’t yer business?” I tried, he
laughed.

“You asking me or telling me, Squickie m’boy?” I hung my
head and rubbed the back of my neck.

“I’m fucking telling you douchebag! Is that better?” The
smile in my voice took a lot of any bite that would have been in it right out.
Zander’s laugh boomed over the phone and I grinned.

“Alright man, you keep your secrets even though you don’t
have to,” he wheezed out, and I grimaced, “I’ll see you in a few.”

“Yeah be right there,” I said and we hung up. If only he
knew just how many and how much I needed to keep my secrets, I mean honestly.

I changed into clean clothes so I wasn’t wearing what I’d
been in yesterday and took off. My car wasn’t running and it was getting cold
for the bike but I didn’t exactly have time to fix the damned thing. Even
less
now, so the old Mazda got to just sit for now. The ride to the shop was brisk.
I backed my bike into the parking stall next to Zander’s and shut it off. I
went in, helmet in hand and nodded to the man himself behind the counter.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Another day another dollar,” he grunted. I nodded.

“Sorry about last night man,” I told him. I mean shit,
friendship aside he
was
still my boss.

“No worries, you got a life too. Glad to see you gettin’
out,” he was counting out the till, getting it ready for the day. The green
bills sliding through his thick fingers as he made the count when my phone
buzzed in my pocket. I slipped it out of my jeans and smiled.

Aaron: Miss U already. Is that lame?

I smiled.

Me: I don’t think so. I’m thinking about you too. How’s
the tat?

“Man, what’s got you smiling?” Zander asked, pausing through
the five dollar bills, he raked me over with his gaze, a wicked grin quirking
up one side of his mouth.

“Just someone I met last night. It’s nothing,” I shoved my
phone in my pocket but he’d gotten that wicked gleam in his eye. The one that
was pure Zander and like a dog who’d just found his new favorite bone.

“Seriously. Who?” he asked.

“Nobody!” I lied and rolled my eyes. He chuckled as I made
my way across the black and white checkered linoleum, past the red and black
painted walls, down the black hallway with the framed newspaper articles about
the shop and into the riot of color that was my space.

I didn’t do framed photos. My art went right up on the
walls. I had two walls with my special brand of new school art mural style on
them. The third at the back, with my drafting table pushed up against it, was
white. It fluttered with like a million drawings and stencils that had been
taped haphazardly to it above and all around my desk. The fourth wall wasn’t
even a wall. It was a half wall with a space cut into it to walk into my area.
I put my helmet on the shelf under my drafting table and slid my back pack next
to it.

I slipped my phone out of my pocket, dying to read the
message that had come in on it while Zander was looking at me like I was his
next challenge. The dude had to know everything but he was quiet about it. He’d
watch and hunt and peck it out of you when you least expected the questions to
come in. He was pretty decent at busting down walls, problem was he wasn’t
always
subtle about it or didn’t care to be. Zander had a temper too which wasn’t
always fun to deal with. Still. All the way around he was a cool dude.

Aaron: Itchy

Me: That means it’s dry. Is it scaled looking?

I frowned. I’d given him a tube of Aquaphor that had been
living in my jacket pocket. I always had the stuff laying around with as much
and with as often as I had my shit touched up.

Aaron: A little.

I sighed and smiled a little to myself. It was his first
tattoo. He didn’t know.

Me: You got the stuff I gave you?

Aaron: Yeah I put some on this morning.

Me: Put some more on.

Aaron: Already!?

Me: You’re past due.

Aaron: I thought it was a once or twice a day thing.

Me: Every time it gets dry. Trust me. I’m a professional.

Aaron: LOL Okay. Have a good day. I have to go in to
practice now. See you tonight?

Me: Barring any club business, yes.

Aaron: :-*

Me: WTF is that?

Aaron: A kiss.

Me: Oh. LOL I’ll save mine for when I see you in person.

Aaron: K!

The bell over the shop door opened and my head jerked up.
Zander was at the entry of my cubical and cursed. I frowned.

“What the fuck over?” I asked.

“Was gonna try and sneak up on you and snatch it. Seriously,
who is it!? What’s her name?” I scowled deeply.

“What are you? Twelve!?” I demanded and shoved my phone back
in my hip pocket. Zander grinned a broad grin and bobbed his head in an erratic
nod.

“Just leave it alone,” I grumbled.

“Leave what alone?” Ashton’s voice was close, and Zander
startled. He whirled and she was right behind him I smirked at her from behind
his back. Zander had a hand to his broad chest.

“Jesus Sunshine! Make some fucking noise next time!” She
wrinkled her nose and gave Zander an impish grin.

“Stop picking on my shop bestie!” she said and Zander
laughed.

“You’re getting a brass pair,” Zander remarked shaking his
head and again Ashton’s nose wrinkled, this time in distaste. Zander’s laugh
boomed out into the shop and Ashton moved aside so that he could move past her.
She gave me a sad, knowing smile and ghosted off in Trig’s direction who stood
just inside the door talking on his own phone, his eyes tracking his woman’s
movements, a mixture of love, concern and confusion in them.

Our eyes met and he nodded in my direction, I gave him a
guarded one back. He didn’t understand my relationship with Sunshine. Never
had, but on some instinctual level I think he knew I wasn’t any kind of threat
so he didn’t feel the need to question it. Thank fuck. I shrugged out of my
jacket and startled a bit when Trig’s voice rose.

“We aren’t paying for shit! Now I don’t know how many times
we’ve had to come out here in the middle of the night because your fucking
alarm goes off for no God damned reason! No! I will not calm the fuck down!
This has been a pain in our ass for long enough, we are way past me being calm
about it.” I could almost hear the big man grinding his teeth from here. Ashton
was near him and gingerly put her arms around his hips, tucking herself into
his side. He shuddered and the tension just eased out of him, melting off of
him into the floor. It made me smile.

“Yes. You do that,” he bit into the phone and it looked like
he wanted to throw it. He shoved it in his jacket pocket beneath his cut and
put his arms around Sunshine.

“Sorry Baby,” he murmured and she looked at him with nothing
short of adoration.

“It’s okay,” she murmured back.

The alarm company was becoming more of a hassle than a boon
lately with three, sometimes four false alarms a month happening. It was enough
to make us a little crazy, especially because the cops got called by the alarm
company to come check it out, we had to pay a fee to the county. I tore myself away
from the scene Ashton and Trig were making in a bid to give them some privacy.
I didn’t see Trig lose his cool very often. Even less in the time that he’d
been with Ashton. Things were just tense all the way around since July. The
Suicide Kings had been laying low and we were all getting a bit nervous. The
shit would go down eventually, we just didn’t know how or when or what it would
or could be and it was anybody’s guess.

I brought out my pencils and sketch pad and settled at my
drafting table. I didn’t have any clients today, so instead I set myself up to
work on some of my drawings for upcoming tats. Tattooing wasn’t all about
laying ink under skin. The designs had to come from somewhere, custom pieces
took time to draw. Sometimes hours. That sixty-five dollar tattoo that took an
hour to ink in was usually more like four, five or maybe even six hours of
work. Drawing and shading and re-drawing. The part of the process the clients
rarely, if ever, saw. Especially when it came to the more elaborate pieces.

So when it was ‘slow’ in the shop, it wasn’t
really
because
I had drawings to do. Not only that, if the
shop
was busy then so was I.
Getting interrupted fifty million times while trying to draw a piece was a
bitch too, but I couldn’t gripe because usually the interruption meant rent for
next month or food for next week and the rat race went on…

Today was no exception. I got two pieces done, and was
interrupted something like fifty times. Add to that Zander had a screamer in
his piercing room, by the time Trig was pulling the cord on the ‘open’ sign I wanted
to scream myself. I stared at my phone for long minutes and waited for it to
betray me with a call from the club but it remained silent and dark. Thank
fuck. I really wanted to see Aaron.

I shoved my pencils back in their case and missed Zander
coming into my space. I was too damned preoccupied with thoughts of Aaron’s
talented mouth on my cock to pay my boss and fellow prospect much mind. He
snatched my phone off the table and I smirked. It was locked. He dropped it
back onto my table with a mock pouty face and picked up my open backpack off
the chair peering into it.

“You’re not going home!” He crowed excitedly. I rolled my
eyes in exasperation and took my pack, shoving my sketchpad and pencils into
it.

“Just give it up man,” I groaned.

“Nah, you present a mystery and I just have to solve it,” he
clapped me on the back.

“Dude we’ve known each other pushing four maybe five years!
You already know everything there is to know,” I pulled on my jacket and cut
and Zander raised a scarred eyebrow.

“Don’t think so Squick. You play your cards close to the
vest,” he held up a hand to stop me from speaking when I opened my mouth to
argue. “Not sayin’ it’s a bad thing dude! I know where you come from. I’m still
not sure how you
got there
but that’s a puzzle for another day. I
like
you
kid, you’re one of my brothers. What you see as me bugging the hell out
of you is really me checking up on you and making sure you’re straight and
don’t need any help. You never ask for it, so sometimes we gotta make sure. You
dig?” he tilted his head and speared me with his gaze.

“I get you,” I said reluctantly, “Still, who I am and am not
fucking is none of your business,” Zander grinned real wide and I cursed myself
inwardly for making such a rookie mistake.

“So you are getting some! Atta boy! Gonna find out who
eventually,” he called over his shoulder. As I watched his retreating back as
he went back up front, my phone buzzed across the table with a text alert. I
caught it as it slipped off the edge.

Aaron: See you soon. Is it retarded that I feel this
excited?

I smiled to myself.

Me: If it is then we ride the short bus together.

I got the hell out of the shop while the getting was good
and rode the six or seven blocks to Aaron’s apartment. By the time I finished
climbing the stairs and was walking down the long, open air landing, his door
was open spilling a rectangle of light into the crisp dark.

“I’ve been wanting to do this all day,” he said, pulling me
into his apartment by the lapels of my jacket. He swung the door behind him
shut and as soon as it did his mouth was on mine.

I dropped my pack to the floor and kissed him back. His
hands smoothed up my chest and cupped my face. I slipped mine under his shirt
and he jerked in my grasp, crying out at my cold hands on his heated skin. I
touched him everywhere, he laughed and tried to pull out of my hands but
nuh-uh. No way was I letting him get away. I bit his lower lip and he gasped
and stopped struggling. My hands warmed quickly and so did the fires of the
extreme lust going on between us.

I shoved Aaron to his knees and gasped, “I want your mouth
on me. Now.”

He smiled up at me from the floor and eagerly worked at the
front of my pants. I groaned at the image and stood, hips jolting as his hot,
wet mouth took me in to the hilt. Fuck I liked that. I liked
him.
What
the fuck was I going to do?

Squick…

“My mom was cool,” Aaron was saying, “I knew there was
something different about me, she knew it too. It wasn’t just the music, I mean
I’m the son of a public school music teacher and a music theory professor,” he
scoffed, “My being musically inclined was to be expected.”

“It was other things. Guys started going ape shit over a
girl in a short skirt and me… I couldn’t stop looking at my best friend Bruce.”
He cuddled in closer to me and I held him a little tighter. We’d been talking
for a couple of hours, maybe more, since our wild passion explosion after I’d
come through the door.

“Yeah?” I prompted when he’d been quiet a moment too long.

“I lost my friendship with him over it. It was in high
school, our senior year.” He sighed and the action held the weight of his pain.

“I hid it all through college even though I didn’t have to.
For a while I was ashamed, you know?” he looked up at me but I stayed silent.
Stiff. He nodded carefully, “Of course you know,” he said softly.

“Yeah,” I affirmed.

“What are you going to do?” he asked quietly when the
silence had stretched too long. I worried my lip ring back and forth with my
tongue, delaying my inevitable answer.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I like you a lot. I want
to see where this goes, but I can’t keep you a secret. It wouldn’t be fair or
right of me to ask that of you, so I’m not…” I paused to gather my thoughts,
changing my trajectory midsentence. “At the same time, I can’t lie to the guys
forever. They’re going to find out,” I pressed the heel of my hand against my
eye where a headache was starting. I was worrying myself fucking sick.

“I know the results are unpredictable, but still, wouldn’t
it be better to come clean before they found out? Tell on yourself before
someone else tells on you?” he asked. I looked down into those beautiful liquid
dark eyes and let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

“Probably,” I agreed, “I’m pretty sure I’m going to have my
ass handed to me…” I swallowed hard. I didn’t think they’d kill me. In fact I
knew for sure they wouldn’t but the thought of anyone of them turning their
backs on me, of doing to me what my dad did to me, of seeing the raw naked
disappointment, or
worse,
disgust in any of their eyes… Well let’s just
say, that for me, there were some things worse than death. I’d rather feel the
kiss of Reaver’s blades than see any of those things on Trig or Zander’s faces.

“I don’t want to lose my job,” I said lamely.

“I know they’re your friends, but if they’re
really
your friends they wouldn’t do that to you. If they do, I know it will hurt but
you’re
talented
Andy.” He rubbed his fingers across an image in my
sketchpad which was splayed across his lap.

“You’ll find another job but wouldn’t it be nice to be free?
To be who you are on the inside, on the outside all of the time and not just
behind locked doors?” his words were both true and really fucking enticing. I
tipped his chin up with gentle fingers just the little bit more I needed so I
could claim his mouth with mine.

Maybe Aaron coming into my life was just the push I needed
at the time I needed it. I couldn’t let them patch me in to the club living the
lie I was living. Brotherhood was more than just about having each other’s
backs in a fight or a bind. It was about honesty and being true to each other.
No secrets, no judgment. It was about having each other’s backs
no matter
what
not just when it suited you. Aaron and I had been talking about it for
quite some time through the euphoric haze of our post-sex blissed out state.
I’d told him all about the guys, about some of the bikes and about the girls
too. I think he liked Ashton already. She had that kind of effect on people…

“I know I can’t hide forever,” I said plaintively, “Still
doesn’t mean I know what I’m going to do.”

Aaron nodded and opened his mouth to speak but my phone
started buzzing across the night table. I reached over and plucked it off the
tabletop and groaned.

“Dray,” I said and Aaron made a motion with his long
fingers, zipping across his lush lips, locking them up and throwing away the
key. It was fucking endearing and adorable. I answered the phone with an
appreciative smile.

“Yo.”

“Prospect. What’re you doing?” he asked.

“Stuff. What do you need?”

Dray snorted, “Closed mouthed bastard. Can you interrupt
whatever it is and go get Ghost?” I sat up straighter.

“What’s wrong with Ghost?” I asked suspicious.

“Down at The Spot, drunk off his ass. Too drunk to drive.
He’s flyin’ colors so the bar owner called me. I gotta be up early to get my
girl and me to work. This type of shit is what you happy bastards are for.” I
could hear the grin in his voice. It was pretty safe to assume that the happy
bastards were me and Zander, the club’s two prospects.

“I’m on it, boss, except I don’t have a car right now. My
Mazda is dead in my driveway, I haven’t fixed it yet,” I said and swung my legs
over the side of the bed.

“I think Ghost has his truck out there. Just get a ride.
You’re a big boy Prospect, fucking figure it out,” Dray grunted and held his
hand over the phone or just held it away from his face, I heard a muffled “Fuck
Baby, that’s nice!” and suddenly I couldn’t get off the fucking phone fast
enough.

“Got it. No problem, have a good time Dray,” I heard him
bark a laugh and the call disconnected. I sighed.

“Come on, I’ll give you a ride out there and drop you off.
You can come back and get your bike after work tomorrow night,” Aaron captured
his lower lip between his teeth in a bid to squash his devilish grin.

“Gonna hold my girl hostage on me huh?” I asked and pushed
him back into the sheets and kissed him breathless. He laughed.

“I think I would do just about whatever it took to see you
again. I like your company and the sex isn’t half bad either,” I laughed and
gave him a peck on the nose, his words suffusing me with a warm glow.

“Come on. I have to go bail my brother out of trouble,” I
made a sour face, “Hopefully it’ll be just that and not out of jail.” The
thought spurred me in to action. I did a quick rinse off in the shower. Two
minutes or less. When I dried off, Aaron appeared in the bathroom doorway in
some loose sweats, sneakers on his feet and a set of car keys in his hand.

“Where is this place?” he asked.

“You know The Spot bar and grill on the main drag in old
town?” I asked pulling on my jeans.

“That the sports place?”

“Yeah,” I pulled my discarded shirts over my head and sat on
the edge of the bed and put my socks and All Stars on.

“Sure. Want me to drop you off just up the block?” I froze
and looked at Aaron’s face which was carefully guarded. I did a slow blink. He
had that look like he was steeling himself to be hurt and while I wasn’t ready
to jump out of the closet draped in a rainbow flag, throwing glitter while singing
at the top of my lungs falsetto… I couldn’t do it to him. I couldn’t ask him to
do that.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do about my
situation but I know what I’m
not
going to do. I’m not going to treat
you like some dirty little secret Aaron. That shit fucking hurts. My folks did
it for years.” I shook my head, “No, fuck that. You can drop me off out front.”

I stood up and pulled on my jacket and cut and slung my
backpack over my shoulder. I’d need the clean clothes if I was going to drunk
sit. Might get in the line of fire by accident if Ghost felt like puking. I
turned to look at him and the look he was giving me said it all: Grateful.
Other emotions roiled in the liquid depths of his eyes but I didn’t have time
to figure it out.

“Is it cool if I leave my helmet with you too?” I asked. He
nodded mutely. I wanted him to know that I wanted to see him, despite the
fucked up situation I had myself in. If I left my helmet I had to come back to
his door. His willingness to keep it for me spoke volumes on its own.

“Come on, before your friend… er, brother, gets himself into
more trouble than it sounds like he’s already in.” I nodded and followed him
out behind the building. He unlocked the doors on this older little Subaru, a
bubble backed station wagon thing, and we got inside. I sighed.

“I’d much rather be back in bed with you,” I grumbled as he
started the car, he smiled at me, the glare on his lenses from the overhead
street light through the windshield hiding his eyes from me.

“I don’t disagree,” he said and shifted the car into
reverse. We spent the short trip into old town in silence, his hand on my
thigh, my hand curled around his long fingers.