All the Sky (34 page)

Nolan was sitting in nearly the same place, his hands now empty, his eyes swollen. He looked at Havoc and then away.

“Just makin’ sure you don’t have a crossbow, too.”

“Fuck you.”

Havoc went into the room and sat on the end of Nolan’s bed. He liked this room. It wasn’t much, but it was Nolan—lots of his art taped to the fake wood paneling that made the walls, the curtains black, the bedding some kind of star map or something. Stacks of comics everywhere. The kid was a Grade A geek. He liked it. Made him think of Bart. And that made his stomach twist into a frozen knot.

Though maybe he was finding a thaw around the edges of that knot. Riley was pregnant, too. He wondered what he’d do if he had to choose between his brothers and Cory or Nolan or this baby or all of them.

He wasn’t even sure it would be that hard a choice.

Maybe someday he’d be able to think about Bart and not think he’d served Sophie up to save his own. Maybe someday that wouldn’t feel like a crushing betrayal. Maybe someday he could think of the man who’d been his best friend and not see Sophie’s head in a box. Not yet, but maybe someday. He took a breath and stopped traveling down that road in his mind. He needed to be calm.

“I’m sorry, kid. I fucked up.”

“No shit. I’m supposed to apologize for shooting at you, but fuck you.”

“Don’t apologize. I’d’ve deserved it if you’d hit your mark.”

Nolan crossed his arms over his chest. “A
sledgehammer
? You really hurt her. You suck.”

“Yeah, I do. I didn’t mean to do it, but that don’t matter.”

“I don’t get how that’s an accident.”

“It’s hard to explain, kid. You know about my sister? Sophie?”

“Yeah. I—I’m sorry about that.” He looked down at his lap. Havoc noticed that his cast had a lot of drawings on it—some obviously Nolan’s own work; others looked a lot like toilet stall art. He detected the tagging work of Omen and Dom. Maybe some Badger and Wrench, too. Nolan was getting lots of visitors, looked like.

“Your ma came on me after that, when I…wasn’t myself. Not an excuse. But that’s how it was an accident.”

“And then you bailed. Knocked her up and bailed, like she’s some slut you can’t be bothered with.”

Havoc’s spine went rigid and his hands clenched. “Don’t ever use that word in the same sentence with your ma. Don’t ever.”

Nolan blinked, and Havoc could see he had a retort queued up, but he swallowed it back and nodded instead. “Why’d you bail?”

“Because I hit her. Because my sister’s dead because I didn’t protect her. Because I don’t want to fuck up a kid. Because you deserve somebody in your life who’s better at being a person.” He sighed, furious with himself. “Because I’m fuckin’ scared of all this, kid. And I ran like a little pussy. But I’m trying to make it right. I want in this family. I love this family.” He shifted his seat on the bed, so that he could face Nolan straight on. “I love
you
, Nolan. I don’t know if you want a dad at all, and I sure as fuck don’t know if you want me for one. But I’m applyin’ for the job. Or big brother, if you like that better.” He grinned. “Though that might be kinda weird, with your ma…you know.”

“
Gross
, Hav. That’s—don’t.” But he smiled, and Havoc knew things were turning around between them.

“Just sayin’.”

Nolan got serious again. “I want my gun back. If you hurt her again, I am going to kill you.”

Havoc believed him. “Fair enough. But you’re not gettin’ that back until I show you how to use it. I’ll train you, and then you can have it, and then you’ll be able to put one right between my eyes, if I ever pull shit like that again.”

“Dom’s gonna teach me.”

“You got it from Dom?” He was gonna pull that skinny shit’s lungs out through his asshole.

“No.”

Jesus, the kid was a terrible liar. Textbook shifty eyes. “Kid, I know it’s a Horde gun. Don’t fuckin’ lie.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“Just make sure he doesn’t ever again leave a loaded gun with somebody doesn’t know how to use it. Did your ma know you had it?”

The kid didn’t answer, just let his eyes slide away. Havoc laughed. “Didn’t think so. Need her okay, too, before you get it back. Hey—we good?”

Nolan sighed and looked him over. “She’s been really sad, Hav. Everything’s always been hard for her. She loves you. She misses you. But don’t make her sad anymore. Promise, and yeah. We could be okay.”

“I promise. On my life, kid. On my life.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Cory wasn’t in the mood to cook, and she was too distracted by what was going on in Nolan’s room to trust herself with sharp objects, so supper was going to be macaroni and cheese from a box. She had a bag of pre-mixed salad, too.

She’d stood the colander in the sink and was just turning the burner off under the boiling pasta when Havoc came out of Nolan’s room. She stopped and watched him cross the living room and come to her.

“I fixed it. We’re okay. We okay?”

She looked over at Nolan’s door; it was open, and he was sitting in the middle of his room, stuck in that stupid chair. Even from across most of the house, she could see his bright blue eyes. Her eyes. They just held that gaze for a couple of seconds, and then he shrugged and smiled, just a little, one corner of his mouth lifting like a twitch.

She bowed her head to her son and then turned back to Havoc and looked up into his dark eyes. He looked different. She hadn’t seen him at all since the night he’d turned and left her in the hospital. The day his sister had died. She’d only been back to work for not yet a week, but now he was avoiding Valhalla, too. So she was surprised by the changes in him. There were new lines on his face. Weariness around his eyes. He looked like a man carrying a burden.

He had changed a lot since he’d left them. Truly, he’d changed a lot in the six months that she’d really known him. Then, he’d been a sexist jerk who was nothing but skin deep. Now he was still a sexist, could still be a jerk, but he had depths of compassion and pain, of vulnerability and love, that she would have thought impossible when he was just the asshole getting an eyeful of her tits.

Could she trust him? That was the question. He was the father of this new child she was carrying. But he’d left them—he’d run at the news that he was the father of this child. She’d already struggled through years with a man who could not face his responsibilities. She’d watched her son struggle through the knowledge that he was too much for his father to bear. She’d seen the way abandonment had stunted Nolan’s heart, turned her sweet, open, sensitive boy into a young man suspicious and quick to anger. She did not want another child to live that pain.

But she didn’t want to lose a chance for her children to have a father. To have a real family. Love. She didn’t want to lose that chance for herself, either.

“You have to stay. Hav, you stay. No matter what, you don’t leave your kids.”

“Or you. Cory, I’m here. I swear. I love you.”

When it came right to it, it wasn’t even that hard a choice.

“I love you, too.”

He touched her then, his hands coming up fast to cradle her head, and she realized that he’d been fighting the urge to do exactly that since he’d come into the room. He brought his head down and kissed her—not his usual ferocious claiming of her mouth, but a sweet, soft brush of his lips over hers, his beard soft on her skin. She sighed and let her body relax toward his, and then his arms were around her, holding her tight. When he pushed between her lips and found her tongue, she moaned.

He stepped back. “Too much? Was I pushing too hard on the baby?”

She laughed at his innocence, such an odd fit on a hard man like Havoc. “No, hon. The baby is the size of a marble. You weren’t anywhere near him.”

“Him?” His eyes went wide.

“Or her. I don’t like to say ‘it.’ That sounds weird to me. So I’ll say ‘him’ until I know—that won’t be for a few months yet.”

He put his hand flat across her belly. As it had when he’d done it earlier, the gesture made her heart lose its tempo for a few beats.

“Fuck. I hope I don’t fuck…him up.” He looked into her eyes again. “You sure you trust me with all this?”

She looked over toward Nolan again, but he wasn’t watching anymore. He’d turned away, to his desk, and was sitting sidelong, as he had to in his wheelchair. He was writing or sketching, or just carefully ignoring them. She smiled, realizing that he’d probably turned away during the kiss.

Turning back to Havoc, she said, “You tell me you’re here, you’re with us, and I’ll trust you.”

“I’m here. I’m with you.” He kissed her again, more like his usual, enthusiastic self, and this time his hand went under her top to spread over the bare skin of her back. Her core tingled and went wet, and she pushed him back a little.

“Hey. We’re gonna have soggy macaroni if I don’t get these noodles out of the water. Plus, you know. Nolan. We need to bookmark this until later.”

“Sorry.” He let her go, then lifted his hand and combed his fingers tenderly through her hair. “I broke your head. We can’t—can we?”

“It’s just a hairline fracture. With the baby, I’m not even taking anything but Tylenol for it. I’m supposed to take it easy, and I have been.” A thought occurred to her, and she cocked her head and smiled, making it as coy as she could. “I think we could…if you can be sweet. Can you be sweet?”

“I can be what you need me to be, honey.”

~oOo~

He stayed with them the rest of the evening. Feeling tired and emotionally drained, Cory went to bed early, leaving Havoc and Nolan sitting in the living room, talking about bikes. Her boy was on the road to the Horde. That scared her—a lot.

She knew that Sophie had been killed violently. Bonnie was full of rumors about the details, which ranged from carjacking to some kind of revenge thing. Bonnie, who’d lived in Signal Bend her whole life, held the opinion that it was revenge. In the past two weeks, during her Havoc Hate-a-thon, she had told Cory a lot of things about the Horde. Not very savory things. They took care of the town and the people in it, and they kept order, but according to Bonnie, they could be really brutal when they were crossed.

But Havoc had been honest with her. She couldn’t say he’d been forthright—he was tightlipped about a lot of details about what he called “club business.” But he was honest and clear about where the line was, what he would tell her and what he would not. And she had decided that she would trust him. She didn’t need to know the details. As long as he didn’t baby her, and he made sure she knew what she needed to keep her kids safe, then that was enough.

A voice inside her head—Lindsay’s voice, actually—told her that it shouldn’t be enough. That the Horde was into dangerous business. Business that had gotten women and children hurt. She knew the history, or at least as much as everybody knew. And now, with Sophie killed, maybe it wasn’t just history anymore. Maybe by being with Havoc she was putting her kids in the crossfire. Maybe that was reckless, irresponsible. Stupid.

She didn’t think so. Maybe she was rationalizing, but she looked around at the world at large, and at the life she’d had already, and she thought that danger and risk and betrayal and death and disease and hate—all of it—was just all around them, no matter what. She thought of Lindsay and Alex and their absolutely perfect, glossy-magazine life, doing everything right, and she hated it. She was growing to hate
them
. The judgment, the narrowness, the superiority. And that was the high road, ostensibly. She trusted the low road more. Maybe that made her a bad person. Maybe it made her a bad mother. But her son was happier—she was happier—in this life, with this man, than they’d ever been.

And that, Cory thought, was enough. That was worth the risk.

Maybe safe was a state of mind.

When Havoc came into the bedroom, she was reading. He closed the door and just stood there, watching her, his backpack hanging off his hand. He’d been eyeing that thing all day, like it contained a bomb or a wild animal or something. She knew it had a gun in it—Nolan had had a gun!—but she didn’t think that accounted for Havoc’s obsessive attention.

“What’s with the backpack?”

He
blushed
. Cory sat up. She was quite sure she’d never seen Havoc blush. She wouldn’t be surprised to know he’d never blushed before in his life. “Hav?”

“Got a Christmas present for Nolan in it. Not sure when to give it to him. I didn’t want it to come off like a bribe.”

“What is it?”

“Laptop. New one. The box wouldn’t fit in my pack, but that’s at the clubhouse.”

“Wow, Hav. That’s so great. You should give it to him. He’ll love it.”

He nodded. “I will. Tomorrow.” Bringing the backpack with him, he came and sat on the bed. “Somethin’ for you, too. But I want to say somethin’ first.”

Curious, she cocked her head. “Okay…”

He cleared his throat and looked down at the comforter under his leg. “I’m not a good guy, Cory. I’ve done bad things. Killed. A few times. And I’ve put hard hurt on more people than I can count. That’s my job, in a way. I’m not a thinker.” He chuckled a little. “Or a talker, much. I’m the guy you go to when you need somebody bloody. Or dead.”

When he brought his eyes to hers, she understood what he was doing, and she felt dizzy. Her hand curled into a fist, clutching the comforter. He went on. “I’ll never give you details about the club. That’s not for you. And I won’t tolerate you pushin’ to know more than I say you can. But you need to know that what happened to Sophie—that’s on me. On the Horde. She got killed because somebody wanted to hurt us. I know we talked some about this before, but I need to know you get it. That you get it and you’re with me anyway. I say I will protect you with my life, and fuck, I never meant anything like I mean that, but I failed Sophie. I could fail you, too.”

He stopped and let his head fall, his bearded chin resting on his chest. For several weighty seconds, they were both silent. Cory wasn’t sure what to do. And then a drop hit his leg, making a faint
plop
on the taut denim over his muscular thigh.