Page 8 of Brother to Brother

“And your husband committed suicide?” I asked skeptically. Men like what she described him to be just didn’tdothat, at least not from what I knew and my own experiences. She and Hayden exchanged a telling look and said yes in unison before dissolving into fits of laughter.

I filed that discreetly into the category ofI just didn’t want to know,and moved on to what Ididwant to know. I looked over at Noah, who was reabsorbed in the cartoons on the screen and turned back to the two women at the table.

“How did his father die?” I asked softly and both of their expressions crushed down into sympathetic ones. Ashton reached out and took my hand.

“Grinder came out here in answer to a call from our club for help,” she said softly and Hayden frowned.

“Ashton…”

“I know, its club business, but she deserves to know the truth,” she said.

“The truth?” I asked.

“They didn’t tell youanything?”Hayden asked, horrified.

I shook my head, and it seemed to make up her mind, “Sorry I interrupted, Ashton, you’re absolutely right,” she said and sat back.

“I won’t tell anyone you told me,” I said, recognizing the position they were putting themselves in.

By all accounts, I was an outsider to them and this was clearly falling under the category of ‘club business’ and even if you did manage to find a bit of club business out,you didn’t share club business with outsiders.It just wasn’t done.Period.

“As I was saying, Grinder came out here to answer a call for help, there was another club, The Suicide Kings, and they did things to hurt The Sacred Hearts, things that required an answer…”

“I understand,” I said softly. She really didn’t need to say anymore. I knew how it worked. Disrespect couldn’t go unanswered, any more than a physical attack of some kind could. It just wasn’t the way things worked in the world of MC’s. The rules were simpler than the rules of society, more basic, more primal, and certainly more barbaric but there was also a certain beauty to it. When these men loved, they loved harder and more deeply than any citizen could ever comprehend… or so I had thought.

I tried to banish the image of Grinder’s face twisted up with anger and hate when I’d told him I was pregnant. The last image I would ever have of the man I loved was him turning his back on me, him riding away after telling me to abort my child…ourchild. After cursing me out for being so irresponsible as to get knocked up in the first place. As if I’dplannedit, as if I had managed it all on myown. I refocused on what the women from this chapter were saying… I needed to know the truth.

“Some of them caught Grinder riding alone one night,” Hayden said and she took up my other hand.

“They ran him off the road,” Ashton said softly.

“Oh god,” I moaned, tears slipping free of my closed lids and slicking hot down my face. I only had one question and I dreaded the answer, because as much as Grinder had hurt me, I had still loved him and not evenhad, he may be gone, but I loved him still. I swallowed hard and asked my question, voice cracking, “Was it quick?” Their silence was really all the answer I needed.

“The men, they all looked for him, it was cold; it was winter, but…” Hayden’s shoulders dropped and she rushed it out, like ripping off a Band-Aid, as if that would make it better, “He was trapped under his bike and it took a day or two, I’m so sorry.”

I cried, and they let me, the reality of the situation sinking in deep, until I was numb, all the way down deep into my bones.Oh my god,I thought and I wondered,did he think about us? Did he wonder in all that time, trapped? Did he know he was going to die?So many unanswered questions that would neverbeanswered and the weight of them absolutely soul crushing.

“I don’t understand why they didn’t tell you,” Ashton said, distressed. “They all came to the funeral.”

Noah looked on from the couch and climbed down, he came to me and I lifted him into my lap. He put his tiny arms around my neck and hugged me tight; I hugged him back.

“Love you,” he said. He was sosmart. Far ahead where he should be with all of his talking. I was so proud of my boy. I loved him so, so much.

“I love you too, baby boy. I love you, too.”

I sat there feeling guilty for taking comfort from my one year old, and at the same time, feeling so blessed that I had him; that I had a piece of Grinder still with me that I could love wholeheartedly with no regrets. It’d hurt so much when he’d turned away from me, when I’d told him I was pregnant, and I’d been so sure he’d come back to us, but then he hadn’t.

Pregnant club whores weren’t exactly welcome around the club in Arizona, so I’d kept my distance. Besides that, I hadn’t wanted any of the other brothers other than Grinder after he and I hooked up. He’d been the love of my life, for all that he wouldn’t make me his ol’ lady. I’d managed to hold on for a few months when it came to my apartment with my waitressing job, but without Grinder’s help, and the mounting bills from the regular doctor’s visits – even on a sliding scale, I hadn’t been able to keep it up for very long and had been forced to move back in with my parents. Parents who weren’t very happy with their twenty-six year old, knocked up, unwed, wayward daughter coming home.

I had tried so hard to get me and Noah out of there, had tried to save everything I’d made at my waitressing job, only to have to cut and run. The only place I had to runtowas back to Grinder… or so I had thought. Now I was here, I reallywasalone, and I was scared. Scared out of my mind.

One day at a time, Melody,I thought to myself, and I had no other choice, truly. Ashton and Hayden were surprising, as far as a couple of ol’ ladies went, but I still couldn’t trust that there wasn’t something awful about to come down the line. It was, unfortunately, a conditioned response.

They stayed, and seemingly, happily, helped me clean the apartment thoroughly. Switching out and bringing up laundry, joining Noah and I over pizza for lunch, and helping me make a shopping list of things I would still need; mostly of food and the like seeing as they’d brought just about every cleaning product I would need.

“He hasnocooking utensils aside from a bunch of mismatched silverware, a bowl or two, and coffee mugs,” I muttered from the kitchen floor. I was putting all the cleaning supplies away under the sink, and thinking I would need child locks for the cabinet to keep little monkey boys out of it, but there really wasn’t anyplace else for me to put any of it up high. The kitchen just wasn’t built that way.

“At least he has a coffee maker?” Hayden said brightly, and the three of us looked at each other and burst out laughing.

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