Page 63 of Bloom: Part 2

Their own son betrayed them. Who fucking does that? You don’t betray your brotherhood. Ever. Those who do deserve worse than death.

Would he still love me if he found out I’d betrayed my family?

19

LOGAN

“Still can’t believe our little Bloom’s getting married,” Crowe said, his tone full of wonder. “Before you came along, we thought he’d never even get a glimpse of what love was.”

Instead of responding, I swirled the whiskey in my glass, watching the amber liquid catch the light. I had barely touched my drink, while the others were several glasses in. Earlier, Crowe and I had clashed, but that tension had dissolved over dinner. The Thanksgiving feast Jamie had arranged was nothing short of perfection.

After dinner, Jamie had taken the younger guys back to the house, Bloom among them. Seeing Bloom go off with them gave me a strange sense of relief. He spent so much time with the bikers or with me, but I wanted him to have friends his own age, people he could talk to and who understood not to judge him for his peculiarities.

Nineteen.

Damn.

I was sleeping with a nineteen-year-old. Hell, I was about to marry him. It was too late now to have regrets. I couldn’t muster any anyway. Not after all Bloom and I had come to mean to each other. Not after all we’d been through together.

Was Marshal Livingston right, though? Was Bloom too young for me to drag him into a life on the run, always looking over our shoulders in case my family caught up with us? Crowe had given in and accepted me tonight, but would he be so understanding when he found out I was marrying Bloom to take him away with me? That they would never hear from him again once we left Smoky Vale under the guise of a honeymoon?

It wasn’t the life I wanted for him, but I didn’t have any other option. If I didn’t take Bloom with me, I couldn’t tell him the truth. And there was no way I could vanish on him, leaving him to feel abandoned and to face the cruelty of never knowing why.

If there was a solution in which everyone remained happy, I hadn’t found it. But I was still searching.

“Remember when he used to sleep on the floor, even though he had a bed?” Sarge asked. He had his chair tilted back on two legs and a can of beer in one hand.

“I remember when he didn’t know what to do with the toilet,” Saint said. “We found him drinking from it. Had to show him what a toilet was for.”

“He screamed bloody murder the first time I tried to get him to take a shower.” Crowe chuckled. “Now he doesn’t mind taking showers with another man, does he, Doc?”

“I think you might be making him uncomfortable.” Grimm took a drag from his fat cigar. He’d offered me one earlier, but I’d turned him down.

“No, I like hearing about his past,” I said. “He doesn’t talk about it enough.”

“He doesn’t remember most of it,” Crowe said. “Saint’s mother—she was his first psychiatrist—said it was his way of copingwith the trauma. He didn’t say his first word for years after we found him.”

“Then we couldn’t get him to shut up.” Sarge shared a look with the other two men, and they burst out laughing. The other bikers had drifted away, not interested in hearing Bloom’s story. Gunner and Ben were making out like teenagers on the long sofa. A few others were playing card games or trying to drink each other under the table.

“Why’s that funny?” I asked.

“I guess because he was mute, we forgot he could hear.” Crowe’s grin turned into a fond smile. “Then one day, he started talking, and we couldn’t believe the filth that came out of that boy’s mouth.”

“Ah, so you’re the reason he cusses like a sailor.”

“Yup. God, we were fucking horrible parents. Weren’t we?”

“Hey, he didn’t turn out too bad,” Sarge said. “He bagged himself a doctor, didn’t he? I’d say the kid’s doing well for himself.”

“Did you ever try to get him into school?” I asked.

“Once. He got expelled the same day. He didn’t fit in and was still the violent boy we’d found in that shed.”

“What was that like?” I asked, my voice hoarse. I wanted to know everything about Bloom to be a better husband, friend, and lover to him.

“Still the worst fucking thing I’d ever seen in my life,” Crowe said.

“Agreed,” Saint said. “I remember it like it was just yesterday.”

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