Page 103 of Apex of the Curve

Her mouth dropped open in a little ‘o’ of surprise and she protested, “You’re not, though.”

“You don’t know the things I’ve done, baby. You can’t know.”

She took her hands from mine with an inarticulate cry of frustration and covered her face with them.

“What was the last bad thing you did?” she demanded firmly, taking her hands from her face and fixing me with a diamond hard look.

“Broke a man’s arms,” I said, without any preamble.

“Why?”

“He broke into the club’s property and stole from us.”

“I’m not even going to ask why you didn’t call the police,” she said and her face set into lines of grim resignation.

“Yeah, pretty pointless. They’d take a report and fuck right off never to be seen or heard from again. They don’t care.” I gave a little shrug.

“What did you hope to accomplish, hurting him?”

“Well,” I said with a sigh. “He’ll never steal from us again, that’s for sure. By extension, we’ll get our shit back, and maybe he’ll be scared straight. Get himself clean.”

She stared at me, eyes bouncing back and forth over my face. She sighed.

“How do you know I won’t go to the police?” she asked.

“I trust you,” I answered simply. “You go to the police; I’d probably be fucked. Likewise, you tell anyone in the club I told you club business? I’d get my ass royally handed to me and it might not be no pair of broken arms.”

“Then where would your father be?” she asked softly. “With the farm?”

“Royally disappointed in my ass, that’s for sure,” I said with a chuckle. “And not for breaking the dude’s arms.”

She sighed and her shoulders dropped in defeat. “I understand it,” she said softly. “I just don’t know if it’s something I can ever condone.”

“Not asking you to, baby. None of us really do, I don’t think. We all know it’s between us and our maker when the time comes. Every man among us has our demons. We all know what rejection feels like as we try to make our way through this life. Hell, some of us know rejection so hard that’s why we’re here. So we can know what it’s like to have one place where we belong.”

“That breaks my heart,” she murmured.

I nodded.

“Mine too, since I’m being honest. That’s why I’m here. A part of the club, I mean. It’s a strange way to balance my scales, but it’s worked for me… They also accepted me when no one else would.”

“There’s a good and a bad to everything, I suppose,” she said softly.

“That’s the truth, Little Leaf,” I said.

“We might be rough around the edges, we might be the kind of thing most normal people fear, but they only fear what they can’t understand and the thing most people could never understand about us? Is the depths of love, loyalty, and brotherhood we’ll go to for one another.”

She bit her lips together and regarded me and finally confessed, “I am so tired of being alone, and afraid, and of not having anyone I feel like I can trust. There’s none of that when I’m with you but…”

I sniffed and nodded, “I’m right here, baby girl. You can trust me, and I’m telling you right now, any motherfucker tries? He’s going to have a lot more to worry about than a pair of broken arms. As for the rest? Tic is an outlier. Maybe some of the rest of the boys don’t trust you yet, but trust comes with time and unlike Tic? They’re willing to give you that.”

“I don’t want to lose you, I just thought—”

“I know, baby. I know. And you ain’t lost me. I’m right here.” I opened my arms, and she leaned forward, resting her head against my shoulder and crying softly, letting the last of whatever it was holding her back go… and I was here for it. Right here.

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