Page 52 of Brother In Arms

Chapter 18

Bailey

We lay cuddled in bed. I’d washed and taken the time to blow my hair dry. I didn’t waste the time drying it because I’d wanted to, but because if I slept on it wet it would have turned into a mess of tangles and waves that I wouldn’t have been able to deal with. We’d washed one another, and had kissed, but I could tell he was waiting me out. He hadn’t spoken a word in all that time, and I just had so many things I wanted to ask that I just couldn’t settle on any one thing to start with.

“Logan,” he muttered against my hair, finally.

I looked up at him sharply and he pressed me into his side a little more firmly. I dragged my leg over his and snuggled closer asking, “Is that your name? I mean, your real name?”

“Logan Fisher,” he said nodding.

“Funny,” I said, “I never in a million years would have guessed you were a Logan. A Kevin or a Donnie maybe but Logan never even crossed my mind.” I searched his face and had to smile, “It suits you.”

“Glad you like it.”

I licked my lips, a sudden thought sobering me as I said; “Tell me why you went to prison?”

He swallowed hard and said, “I was still pretty new to the club. Patches on my cut hadn’t even had a chance to get dirty yet, you know?”

I nodded and he sighed, “I was at the local grocery store and this little guy was lookin’ up at me all wide eyes and curiosity and I asked him, ‘you like motorcycles?’ Kid couldn’t have been more than five or six, you know?”

He paused and I could see whatever it was still hurt his feelings, even today. “Anyway, his mamma starts yelling at me, makin’ this big ol’ fuckin’ scene about not talking to her kids, throwin’ around phrases like ‘people like you’ and shit. Then she drops the thermo-nuclear bomb of insults. She accuses me of being a fuckin’ child molester. I’d been putting up with it up until that point but fuck that shit, you know? There’s disrespect and then there’s disrespect.”

He gave a big sigh, his hands smoothing aimlessly against my skin as if he were subconsciously afraid that by the end of the story, I would never want him to touch me again, and so he was trying to commit the feeling of my body to memory before it was gone from his grasp forever.

“Go on,” I urged quietly, twining my fingers through his, then looking at our hands. I knew in my heart of hearts that I couldn’t promise anything. If what came out of his mouth next was that he hurt that woman in front of her son? I just didn’t know if that was something I would ever be able to forget or let go of.

“I popped off at her, started yelling back about fuck her and her bullshit preconceived notions and this guy comes in and starts yelling at me and getting in my face. We’re yelling back and forth exchanging choice words and then he goes and does it… he hits me.”

He fell silent and I was confused, I mean, if he was the one who was hit, then why did he go to jail? Why didn’t the other guy.

“I swore after Duncan and Norma-Rae, I would never let another man lay hands on me again. He just flipped my switch and it was like I blanked out. I fuckin’ raged. I beat him into a three day coma. I don’t even remember doing it. It didn’t matter that the guy threw the first punch. I went away for aggravated battery. Didn’t even try to take it to trial. Prosecution had the store surveillance tape and any jury would have locked my ass up in a heartbeat for the maximum. I was looking at a ten to fifteen year sentence. I plead it down to eight, thanks to overcrowding and good behavior, I was out after three.”

I swallowed hard and squeezed his hand. I don’t think I could blame him for his reaction. I had a feeling I knew, but I had to ask any way just to be clear, “Who are Duncan and Norma-rae? Your foster parents?”

“Yeah,” he said unhappily and I felt my heart squeeze down into about the size of a quarter in my chest. I ached for him. For the lost little boy that he’d been and the damaged young man he’d become as a result. Still, for as awful as his childhood had been and as hard a mistake he had made in the beginning, I still couldn’t help but be impressed at the man who held me close and occupied my bed with me.

“Why did you come here to help me? I mean, you didn’t even know it was me, and when you found out, you still stayed, despite my being a bitch.”

“Dray said his family was in trouble, he’s my club brother, a bond we treat as almost thicker than even blood. One of us asks for help, we answer. There is no other option there. You don’t answer, you’re a liar. We all took an oath when we put those colors on our backs to be there for each other and to do right by one another. We take that shit seriously.”

I laid my head on his shoulder and bit my bottom lip, I wanted to ask, and now? I really did, but I was scared about the answer. Still, if they could be brave and strong and do these things for me, then I could face the truth no matter what it was.

“And now?” I said it out loud and steeled myself for the answer.

“Now, even if Dragon ordered me to pull out and leave the situation alone, I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

“Why?”

“Because that would mean leaving you high and dry and I couldn’t do that.”

“Why?”

Silence. Too long of a silence. I pulled myself up and propped myself onto one arm so I could look down at him. He had an expression as if a very real war were going on inside and I straddled his hips and stared down at him, waiting him out, scared for the answer myself. My heart thundered in my chest so hard I felt my pulse point leaping out of the side of my throat.

“Because, Bailey… isn’t it obvious?” he swallowed hard and I think he was freaking out on the inside as hard as I was.

“I think I want to hear you say it.” I said.

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