Page 82 of Cross To Bear

Bjorn stopped tattooing the big member of the Steel Dragon MC and stared at the lot of us.

“Everything all right, mate?” the guy asked our brother.

“Fine,” Bjorn told him. “Just woman problems.” He bent over the man’s ribs and continued with the shading of the massive dragon piece he was working on. “So she wants us to come over for dinner. Ten bucks says I know why.”

“Not taking that bet,” Razor informed him. “Ten to one, your brother will be there and this is a big family reconciliation attempt. Question is, where’s your head at?”

We didn’t grow up with Jesse. He was just some annoying kid that hung around sometimes that turned into a truly annoying adult. Life had gotten a whole lot easier since he stopped coming around the garage. He could’ve fallen off a cliff, and we’d have felt sorry for Bjorn’s loss, and not much else. He wasn’t reliable, wasn’t likeable and most of all, he was a manipulative little shit. But Bjorn…

I watched him frown, not at the tattoo. He’d done dozens of dragon tattoos for the MC, could do this one in his sleep, but as the silence stretched on, I knew what he’d say. If it was no, the response was immediate, so instead he just worked through his thoughts until he said yes.

“Fine, we’ll go around.” He pulled back and wiped excess ink and blood off the man’s ribs, then moved the gun to the next spot. “Maddie will be at her parents’ place, so there’s no point waiting around for her. We’ll stop around Mum and the dads’ place for a bit, see what’s up and then when Maddie’s done…”

There was so much each one of us wanted to pack into the end of that sentence, but we didn’t, because none of it could be assumed, not yet. Even Razor’s mating mark didn’t mean all that much in the greater scheme of things, not when she kept dancing out of our reach. But we’d wait her out, let her come to us and then… Brief flashes, of her, her scent, the way her eyes sparkled when she really smiled, the bubble of her laughter, even the long sighs she took when she slept. I wanted them, all of them and I wanted them right fucking now.

“All right, I’ll let Nelly know,” Crash said, pulling out his phone and tapping out a message. “At least we know we’ll get a good feed tonight. Your mum’s lamb roast is almost as good as Hawkie’s.”

It wasn’t even close but whatever. Decision made, we went back to work, finishing off the day before washing up and going around to Bjorn’s family home.

Sometimes I wondered what it would be like, having just one place you called home your entire life. My mother was always moving or forced on when her wheedling and clumsy attempts at seduction stopped working. I learned not to get attached to places, stuff, even people, right up until I landed in the same school as Crash. We were in the same class, and a teacher asked him to show me around and we… We just clicked. I was introduced to his friends, Rafe and Bjorn, before recess was done and that was the first time I ever felt at home anywhere. Though as I stared at Bjorn’s family’s house, I wondered.

Would our place become the same for Maddie and our kids, if she wanted to have them? Would they grow up knowing the house, that we were always there? Something flared bright, too fucking bright in my chest, and I was forced to stuff it back down again. I didn’t know if that would happen, if Maddie would accept all of us, if we—

“There’s my boys!”

Nelly charged forward as soon as we came down the hallway, arms out wide. I hated people like this, that were overly effusive, so much so it had to be fake. She wrapped Razor in a hug, something he tolerated with a small smile, then moved on to Crash.

“Something smells nice, Nelly,” he told her and she just slapped his shoulder.

“Always the best for you guys, you know that!”

Fake, so fucking fake.

“And Hawk.” Women often paused when they came face to face with me, and she did now, some feminine instinct telling her not to touch. “Always so serious. How about a beer to loosen you up?”

She didn’t want me loosened up, because if I was, there’d be a whole lot of home truths that’d come spilling out of my lips. Especially ones about the bloke that came strolling in through the door.

“Jesse…!”

Nelly went to give her youngest son a hug, obviously trying to set the mood for the night, drawing him forward with her arm wrapped around his waist, blithely ignoring the growing tension. Bjorn’s dads shifted restlessly around the edges of the room, ready to jump in if things got heated, because Nelly was drawing Jesse over to face his brother, like a fight caller might two combatants in a ring.

And in this fight, they wouldn’t be playing nice.

“It’s good to have everyone back in the room again.”

This was the lie of families, I’d quickly discovered. Crash’s family had done their best to bring me into the fold, and while it was nice having people I could rely upon in a pinch, I saw firsthand the effort maintaining a family bond took. Everyone lied to each other all of the time. From ‘yes, you look amazing in that’ when they really didn’t to ‘don’t worry, things will start picking up’ even though there was no hard evidence it would. People lied and lied and that’s what their bonds were based upon, but not us. Not tonight. Not now.

Because while Nelly’s agenda was transparent, we had one of our own. To make clear we would stand for no further meddling when it came to Maddie. That she was of the utmost importance… No, sacred to us. Anyone who fucked with her would be taking on all four of us, and we would show no mercy in our dealings with them. I communicated that in my gaze as I stared at Jesse.

He registered that but didn’t respond. Probably because he looked like fucking shit. The bloke had had a shower and put on clean clothes, though it didn’t mask the sour smell of beer coming out of his pores. He looked thinner and there were lines in his face that weren’t there before. Good. I wanted to see him hurting. The bear wanted to tear off his head and shit down his neck, so I used this knowledge to placate him.

“Fellas,” he said with a nod, the motion a little sloppy, making me think he might be still drunk.

“Jesse.”

That was the only acknowledgement Bjorn gave his brother, but it seemed to be enough. The simmering tension in the room dropped back down to a more bearable temperature as Taz, one of Bjorn’s dads, stepped in.

“So what’re we drinking, boys?” he asked. “Beers after a long, hard day at work?”

---