Page 23 of Love Thy Brother
“I know. It’s just in case you ever feel like you’re not.”
Too much empathy swam in those words. Too much love.
My hands twitched on the wheel. I loved Embry right back, but shit, I needed out of this place before the wretched corkscrew inside me spiralled out of control.
He let me go, slipping a folded piece of paper through the window at the last minute.
It fell into my lap. I left it there and drove away. In the rear-view mirror, I saw Nash come out of the clubhouse and sink onto the steps.
He hung his head and buried his face in his hands. It almost spun me around—the desperation to make it right. But me and Nash, we were ride or die. Battered, not broken like my ribs. We’d be okay. I knew it even with his knuckles imprinted in my fat lip.
Only River had a stronger hold on my heart.
6
RIVER
I’d been under someone’s thumb my whole life. My dad. My ma.
Cam.
When I walked away from the MC, I surrounded myself with people who stayed out of my shit. A roommate who kept his opinions to himself. Mechanics who gave me a wide berth on a good day. It meant I never had to explain myself. Or justify the ragey mayhem that followed me around.
It meant no one talked me down and I stayed angry about everything forever.
I roared back to Porth Luck, revving my Softail on the country roads, taking tight bends too hard and too fast, burning rubber. The comedown from the night before was still kicking me in the dick, but I welcomed the scratchy, barbed fatigue. It stopped me thinking about Rubi and Nash and what in the ever-loving shite they’d got into when I’d left.
Nothing, probably. They never fight.
But Nash’s face, man. Last time I saw him like that, someone had stuck their paw up my sister’s skirt.
I rumbled onto the pavement outside the garage. Up the road, the black Transporter was absent. But it’d be back, today, tomorrow, whenever.Unless you drag that cunt out and light him on fire.
Picturing it made me jittery. Despite the short fuse that ruled my life, I didn’t have a killer instinct unless someone hurt the people I loved, and I’d forcibly removed myself from that years ago, for all the good it had done me.
Fuck. Make it stop.
I went inside.
True to form, Axel and Bear barely glanced up, engrossed in their work as metal music played in the background.
I turned it up, chasing the nostalgic calm a dose of Pantera usually gave me, but I was beyond that kind of therapy today. I needed to break something that wasn’t irreparable, eat some dinner, and pass the fuck out. Fixing the Road King didn’t appeal. But I was dedicated. Committed. I had to be, or I’d abandoned everyone I’d ever cared about for nothing.
It wasn’t a new reality, but it hit hard all the same. Anxiety gripped me, shaking my nerves. My hands trembled and paranoia danced in my peripheral as I bent over the fragmented bike engine.
I gritted my teeth, resisting the urge to scrape my nails down the bare skin of my arms. Ink covered the scars I carried on my wrists. I wasn’t in the market for any more. Besides, I wasn’t fifteen. I was an adult with a motherfucking business and a life plan that didn’t involve carving slices out of myself for blessed relief.
I got my head down and made myself work. Pantera gave way to Guano Apes and a track Rubi and Cam had played so much when they were kids that my ma had cut the plug off Cam’s stereo. The lyrics were a drumbeat in my soul. A kick down memory lane I didn’t need or want, but still, I turned that fucker up. Let it buzz in my blood until I really was a teenager again, creeping on my brother’s best friend across the clubhouse bar.
Or watching him fight in the ring, all brute strength and laughter. It was weird that metal jams made me think of him. We’d spent our lives saturated in it, but Rubi loved all kinds of music, from Billy Idol to ABBA. And he sang them all like an operatic rock star.
My pulse ran away from itself. It thundered in my ears, and the tool in my hand clattered to the concrete floor.
The garage was noisy enough that no one else noticed, but the sound reverberated in my brain and my tenuous grip on myself gave out.
I left the spanner where it was and backed away from the Road King. I’d made progress, but it was still in too many pieces for me to appreciate how much. All I saw was chaos. And I felt it too, in an elemental way I’d conveniently forgotten about when I’d been banging mandy up my nose.Comedowns always fuck you up. Why are you so goddamn stupid?
Because getting out of my head was worth the fucking pain. Trouble was, I hadn’t accounted for the mindfuck of a messy trip back home. Of fighting Rubi and Cam. Of being so close to my sister and not even speaking to her. At some point, I’d have to read the messages she’d been blowing up my phone with all day long, but I couldn’t face it. Not yet.
