Page 9 of Between Brothers

Chapter 3

Blue

Mid-October sunshine beating down, leaves turning a rich golden red, and a deep sense of fall was riding the air… but it was still over seventy degrees out here. It was officially an Indian summer as far as any of us were concerned, but lacking the haze and conditions to make it a real one by Farmer’s Almanac standards. Yet another thing I’d learned while locked up. The only other thing besides the art of folding paper to keep me occupied had been the prison library and I’d gone through their selection pretty quick. After the first year, anything that came in that I could use to stave off boredom with, I would… up to and including the shit ton of outdated Reader’s Digest and The Farmer’s Almanacs that sat dusting in the library’s corner.

Cell and I had been back on day shift with the road crew for a little over a month which meant we’d been back at the diner on Haley’s shift. Unfortunately, I’d gone and done the one thing I’d never in a million years had wanted to… I’d scared her, and she’d gone back into her shell again. She was quiet, skittish, and yet when I did manage to make eye contact I could see such a longing in her deep brown eyes. A chink in her armor, maybe? I hoped so.

Duracell slapped me in the chest and I startled from my thoughts, shaking myself as if coming awake. We were at the Harvest Days Carnival as a club, but also as a family with all the ol’ ladies and kids in tow and we’d been having a blast so far. I scowled at him and he laughed at me, gesturing up the slight incline we were standing at the bottom of at the cotton candy cart at the top.

I followed Duracell’s gesture and gaze to a pair of worn cowboy boots, up a pair of gorgeous as fuck legs, over a damn near perfect ass and hourglass figure below a white peasant’s blouse. Long dark hair spilled down her back and it was beautiful when it was free like that.

She usually only wore it in a braid with that fringe of bangs kissing her forehead, but not today. Today the top half was pulled up and held by a pewter clip in the shape of an owl. Today she was almost smiling as she took the fluffy blue cloud of candy from the vendor. Today her eyes sparkled as she tore a bit off and licked it off her thumb and oh, god…

I wanted it to be my thumb, hell, I wanted her lips, her tongue, on any part of me. I felt it keenly, like a deep, fractured ache in the center of my being. I wanted her so badly between me and Cell while we worshiped and ravaged her body. I wanted to put her squarely between heaven and hell and I just didn’t know how.

“Hayley!” Melody called and I silently cursed inside my head. I wanted to watch her longer, without her knowing we were here. There was something about seeing her out here, candid, without any of her super self-consciousness that she wore like a cloak when we entered the diner anymore.

“Blue, I’m only gonna fuckin’ say this once,” I swung my gaze back to Cell’s face, already knowing by his tone that I wasn’t going to like what I was going to hear. “You make this work your way, now, today, or I’m taking over. You’re being a fucking pussy and the case of balls with your name on ‘em ain’t getting any better. You picked her, sure, but I want her, too; and I ain’t too keen on waiting much longer.”

I scowled at him and dropped a truth, “Your way you get her once; my way we could have her forever.”

“Fuck you and your logic, man,” he said laughing but he was in a good mood and backing off, which is what I needed.

Hayley moved down the little hill towards Mel, giving me a quick sweet smile before shooting a nervous glance Duracell’s way. Duracell caught it and looked at me with a shit eating grin saying, “Do your thing man. I’ll fuck off for the moment.”

I gave him a nod and he went over near Reaver and Trigger. I drifted up nearer to Hayley while she talked with Mel. She smiled and tore off a hank of her cotton candy for Noah who was reaching for the offered sweet.

“You are gonna be one hell of a mess, little man,” his father ground out, but Archer was all rare smiles as he hitched his son further up into his arms. Melody had Chandler in a baby buggy and was rolling her sleeping, second son back and forth over the dry grass absently.

“It’s okay,” Hayley said to Noah. “Little boys wash, don’t they Noah?”

Noah just gave her his wide, dimpled grin and laughed, shoving his little fistful of spun sugar into his mouth, getting most of it smeared in a bright blue stain around it. It was both gross and adorable, but then again, I had a thing about being clean. It was part of why I hated my job so much.

“Hi,” I said, pitching my voice low and hoping like hell it didn’t come out uncertain, which it probably did. Truth was, every time I saw Hayley I got so damn nervous I almost couldn’t stand it. The butterflies launching themselves into a flurry of activity in my stomach to the point I almost felt ill. I swallowed hard and wiped my sweating palms on the seat of my jeans, casually stuffing my hands in my back pockets to disguise what I was actually doing.

Archer and Melody just blinked and stared at me a second, and the attention made my skin grow hot with a blush. This is why I didn’t talk to people. Talking led to looking, and the looking meant that I had their attention and I hated having people’s attention unless I was comfortable enough with them.

I was comfortable enough with Cell because I understood him, for the most part. The only other person I had grown comfortable enough to really talk with since coming to this new chapter was Dani Broussard, Red-Thirteen’s ol’ lady. If I had to pick a best friend outside of Cell, it’d probably be her. Right now, though, I was trying really hard to expand my tight as hell inner circle to include this beautiful creature right here. The one looking at Melody and Archer curiously, the gears spinning behind her deep, soulful brown eyes as she puzzled through their expressions. Her gaze flicked back to mine and she drew a deep, steadying breath before she said so politely, so sweetly, “Hi, Blue; it’s good to see you.”

I couldn’t help but smile and the next words that came out of my mouth came much easier as long as I focused on her rather than all of my other club brothers and sisters looking at me like I’d done something utterly mystifying.

“Take a walk with me?”

Hayley smiled, the color intensifying across the bridge of her nose and along her cheeks.

“Oh my god, girl! Go on!” Melody encouraged, laughing, when Hayley didn’t immediately respond.

“Sure,” Hayley murmured demurely and my heart soared; not gracefully either. Instead of an eagle or some shit, that fucker lifted off with all of the smoke and fire of a goddamn space launch, the nerves and bile rising with it, scorching my throat something awful as I forced it back down. I forced a smile to my lips even as that voice of derision and doubt screamed in the back of my head, demanding to know ‘what the fuck did I just do?’ and following up with ‘what the fuck was I going to do now?’

I let my feet carry us away from the prying eyes of my club brothers and felt some of the tension leave my shoulders. Hayley smiled and shyly ate some of the cotton candy she’d bought. All I could do was stare at her mouth as she sucked the sweet confection off her fingers. I was a man transfixed by the smallest thing she did, aroused but also put at peace. Watching her calmed the raging demon of insecurity that pretty much ravaged the hell out of me from the inside out on a daily.

“What’s wrong?” she asked softly, her face crumbling and I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Was it something I did?” she asked meekly and I pinned her with a look, scowling.

“Never. The smallest things you do, I just…” I shrugged, “I find them beautiful.”

“Oh.” Her voice held a bit of a shocked echo, her lovely face, free of makeup, painted instead with surprise.

We’d stopped near one of the rides that had been set up in the field they were holding the festival in and I turned to look at it rather than face her curious scrutiny right then. It was a Ferris wheel, and I turned back to her and asked, “Go with me?”

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