Page 93 of Where We Ended

“You don’t have a cell?”

No. But how was I supposed to explain that? I must have waited too long to answer because Red stopped and left her spot at the stove.

“Come on in here, we have extras.” She walked ahead of me into an office that sat just outside the kitchen. The office had a simple metal desk inside and two basic chairs in front of it. There was a pretty window on the far wall letting in a ton of light. For some reason I felt the tension swirling around my chest begin to ease. The Death Raiders club never felt this way. It never felt like it could be a home.

Red opened a drawer and pulled out a package made of plastic.

“Do you have any funds to add minutes to it?” She handed me the package that had a prepaid cell phone inside.

I nodded, feeling excited that I could call Silas. “How much do I owe you?”

She waved me off. “Maybe come down and keep me company in the kitchen from time to time.”

She moved out of the office first, not even worried that I might not be trustworthy to stay behind among their club secrets. I trailed closely behind her.

“I can clean, and I’m fairly decent at baking, but if you give me a few pointers, I could probably get better.”

Red’s expression softened toward me as she returned to her pot of soup.

“I’d be happy to teach you, sweetheart. Do you want some dinner to take up to your room? There’s only so many boxes of crackers you can eat before you need to see a doctor.”

I was getting sick of being in my room, and the boxes of Ritz I had.

With a laugh, I ducked my head. “How did you know they were crackers?”

“You aren’t the first girl adjusting to a new club, sweetheart. From what Simon told me, you’ve had a rough go of it over there with The Death Raiders.”

Just hearing their name made me want to break into hives.

I didn’t respond and started toying with the plastic package.

Red placed a bowl of soup in my hands and gave me a warm smile. I looked up and felt like her smile was an invisible piece of thread worming its way through my heart, knitting and fixing the gaping hole torn open by losing Silas and Sasha.

“Can I eat down here…um at the bar?” I glanced over at the space, seeing a few members there but an open spot on the end.

Red walked me over to the bar with her arm around my shoulder, stopping in front of an older member, the name Brooks was stitched into his leather cut.

“This here is my man, Brooks—if you ever feel like one of these Stone Riders pushes you around or makes you feel uncomfortable, just tell him. He’ll keep you safe.”

The man turned toward me, giving me the widest smile I’d ever seen. He had silver hair braided down his back and a leather strap covering the crown. “Anyone my girl says is safe, will have my utmost protection.”

His adoring gaze on Red made me feel relaxed. So I slid onto the stool next to him and began eating my soup, and for the first time in an entire month, I stopped thinking about how badly I missed my husband.

SIX MONTHS LIVING WITH THE STONE RIDERS

Tears streamed down my face from how hard I was laughing. It was so bad; I could hardly breathe. Red kept swatting my arm to make me stop, but I couldn’t.

“Why are you two laughin’ at me?” Brooks only made things worse by putting his hand to his hip.

We were in their small apartment that sat off to the side and on top of one of the club garages. It was nestled back, so out of the way that I had to be shown where the steps were. The small house looked like something you’d find crowding the shoreline in a beach town. It was painted blue, with wooden decorations, hanging from a rope that clinked together when the wind swirled through them.

Their door was even worn as if it had seen several storms over the years, but their home was cozy and every single faded piece of siding along their apartment seemed to boast of love and happiness. Inside their home, a tiny, two-seater couch faced a large flat screen television. A tattered rocker was angled to the side, with a side table next to it. An ashtray was there that looked like something a child would make in a pottery class during school.

When I asked where it came from, Red smiled and said it was Callie who had made it for them. There were all sorts of tiny treasures around their home that spoke of their deep fondness of this girl I still hadn’t met. She was Simon’s daughter but had moved away and hadn’t returned in several years. I could tell it was difficult for Red to talk about, so I moved the conversation along.

But I saw photos of a young Killian too, and those made me laugh and smile. The vice president of the club had been nice to me in the months since I arrived. Always checking to make sure I was okay, but distant enough not to seem like he was flirting. He gave off brotherly vibes, which made me relax around him.

So as I touched photo frame after photo frame and little mementos of the beautiful history this club had lived, I would smile. Simon Stone was a frequent person in their photos, along with his daughter when she was young. She and Killian looked more like siblings growing up, as they stood there, dirty clothes, tangled hair and glares at the camera.

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