Shadow & Soul (31 page)

A slim shadow was cast over his shoulder and into the pool, and then a familiar, small hand was holding a bottle of beer in front of his face. He took the bottle in one hand, and the hand in the other, and kissed Faith’s palm. “Hey, babe.”

She sat on the tile poolside next to him. “Hey, you. How ya doin’?”

He took a long pull from the bottle and then put his arm around his old lady. “I am good. I am the best I’ve ever been.”

She kissed his shoulder. “Me, too.”

“Pa!” Tucker was running around the pool with something in his hand. “Pa!”

“Walk, buddy. Don’t run by the pool. You have to go slow and be careful.” Tucker slowed to a careful, mincing step, and Demon and Faith both laughed quietly. “What you got, Motor Man?”

Tucker finally made it to them and held out a tiny pink teacup with Alice in Wonderland on the side. “Lexi made tea! And…and…” He stopped and screwed up his face. “Frumpers.” He blew over the top of the cup as if what was inside it were hot, and then he presented it carefully to Demon.

He took the tiny pink—and empty—teacup and pretended to take a sip. “Yum, Tuck. Thanks!”

“Tea and frumpers?” Faith laughed.

Tucker nodded enthusiastically. “Uh-huh! For Pa! Birfday! Come, Pa!” He hooked his arms around Demon’s arm and pulled.

So Demon handed his beer to Faith, then got up and took his son’s hand. “Where we goin’, buddy?”

“Tea party!” Tucker shouted. The Horde that were lazing around the pool hooted. Demon flipped them off when Tucker wasn’t looking.

Lexi and Ian had a miniature patio of their very own, complete with a miniature outdoor kitchen and a miniature patio furniture set. The kids had set the table with Lexi’s pink dishes, and there were little cookies—Oreos—on the plates. Lexi, wearing a sparkling tiara that said
Happy Birthday
in rhinestones, was ‘cooking,’ but there was no sign of Ian.

No, there he was, pulling Nolan over from the combat croquet game. The other birthday boy.

“Wow, guys,” Nolan said. “This all looks great. Thank you for going to all this trouble.”

“’Tis no trouble at all. Please join us for tea and crumpets,” Lexi answered, affecting a little accent, and Demon and Nolan exchanged a look and almost laughed. She was such a prim little miss.

Tucker sat at the table, but Lexi turned and said, “No, Tucker! You should pull out a chair for the guest of honor!” So Tucker stood up and dragged a little chair back, smiling up at his father.

Demon sat. Nolan sat. And Lexi came to the table with a teapot and poured ‘tea’ for everyone. Sitting in the middle of a biker family party, in swim trunks, their tattooed torsos bare, they had a little birthday tea party presided over by a princess in a tiara.

Demon had never been happier in his life.

~oOo~

The party at Bart and Riley’s ended around dusk, as the children began to get tired and grouchy. The single men rode back to the clubhouse to find more adult entertainment, and the families headed home. Although Faith still hadn’t been sleeping with him since Margot had been moved in at San Gabriel’s, because she didn’t want Sly and the kittens to be totally alone at that house, on this night, she came back with them to Hoosier and Bibi’s.

It wouldn’t be long now and they would all be living together.

Demon put a completely zonked boy, still clutching a stuffed cow Faith had given him, to bed in his crib. Then he stood for a few minutes and watched his son sleep. His cheeks and forehead were pink; his sunscreen had worn off and Demon hadn’t noticed and reapplied it quickly enough. But he wasn’t overly hot, and he obviously wasn’t uncomfortable.

“Night, Motor Man,” he whispered and turned to go through the bathroom and into his room, where Faith was waiting for him.

She was naked and waiting in bed. She, too, had taken a little sun; he could see the faint outline of her bikini on her skin, but she had tanned, not burned. As he approached, dropping his own clothes on the way, she came up onto her knees and crawled to the edge of the bed.

When she lifted her arms to hook around his shoulders, Demon caught sight of the tiny scar on the inside of her upper arm. He put his finger on it. “How long does that last?”

“Three years. It’s been in for about two.” Faith cocked her head. “Why?”

He met her eyes. What he was going to say wasn’t an impulse at all. He’d been thinking about it for weeks. Since before he’d learned that they had made a baby in the time before. But he’d wanted to wait to know about Tucker first. “I have almost everything I’ve ever wanted in my life.”

She smiled and leaned in to kiss his chest, over his heart. He pushed her back gently so he could see her face again. “Almost everything. I want a house with you. I want to marry you. And I want to have children with you. Then I’ll have everything. Do you want that?”

Her smile deepened and became somehow more serious. “I do. Are you proposing?”

“Yeah. Will you marry me, and make a baby with me when that thing wears off?”

“Oh, yes. And then I’ll have everything, too.”

Grinning, his throat feeling tight and his heart pounding, but with happiness instead of stress, he put his hands around her face and kissed her. He put everything he’d every felt for her in that kiss. She still smelled of the day—the pool, sunscreen. Sunshine. Somebody should bottle that scent.

His cock throbbed and kicked against her, and he needed more. When he moved to lay her down, though, she resisted and leaned back. “We don’t have to wait a year if you don’t want to, Michael. I can have it removed at any time, and then it just takes a few days to be out of my system. We can start whenever you want.”

“You’d be okay with starting so soon?”

“It seems like we’re starting late, really. Doesn’t it?”

He nodded. “I love you so much.” Then he kissed her again. As he pushed her back on the bed, he remembered the night Hoosier had told him he could come home.

Now he finally was.

memory

He felt his entry into Los Angeles almost as if he’d gone through a literal barrier. The atmosphere felt different to him. As he’d crossed into California, every mile had weighed a little heavier, but actually being in L.A., for the first time since Muse had picked him up and led him out—it was hard. It had been his home almost all his life, but it had only briefly felt like one.

Still, that brief time had been the only time he’d had one.

He was riding in alone; Muse was doing a three-year bid for aggravated assault. He’d been in for eight months and was doing his damnedest to stay out of trouble and maybe get out at half-time. That still meant nearly a year left.

It wasn’t the first time Demon had ridden alone during his years as a Nomad, but he never liked it. There came a point when he was on his own where he’d gone days without talking to anyone, except to order food or take a cheap motel room. After a day or so, his head would start to get bored and snack on itself, rooting around in the dark corners for a midnight treat. Not long after that, he’d start to get twitchy. Usually somebody ended up bloody and broken when he got twitchy.

He’d spend his nights in the roughest bar he could find, knowing that he could get a good fight and bleed his line some. And he went looking for the sloppiest work he could find. All the charters knew what they were getting when they called Demon in riding solo.

But this was different. He wasn’t riding to a job. He was riding to a funeral. Blue had been killed in the chaos that was swirling around the whole club’s work with the Perros. Hoosier had called and asked him to come to the funeral. Demon had asked if Faith would be there. After a long pause, Hoosier had said he didn’t know.

Demon didn’t know if he wanted her to be there or not. He figured the odds were good that she would be; Blue was her father, and they had been close until Demon had ruined everything. Maybe they’d made up in the six years since.

He wanted to see her. He knew it would hurt. But the image of her in his mind was, despite his best efforts, fading, and at least he wanted to refresh it.

~oOo~

She wasn’t there. Margot and Faith’s sister were there, and hundreds of brothers and friends were there. Blue had been a member for decades. He was known and loved.

Margot paid him no mind at all, almost as if she didn’t recognize him. Maybe she didn’t; he was bigger, and he wore his hair much shorter, but that still seemed farfetched. He was glad, though. He kept back as far as was polite and let the funeral happen around him.

By intention, he’d arrived later than most, and he planned to leave earlier, as soon as the wake became a party. Walking into the L.A. clubhouse for the first time since he’d walked out of it in shame had hurt. Everything was the same. It looked exactly as it always had. It smelled exactly as it always had. It was as familiar as home, and it hurt Demon’s insides. For the first time in his life, he understood what people meant when they talked about what it was like to go home after a long time away, the way everything was exactly as it should be and yet it all had a shimmer of newness, as if one’s senses had to be reminded about the way things should be.

But this was no longer his home. He wasn’t coming home. He couldn’t.

His brothers were happy to see him. And Bibi hugged him for a long, long time. When she pulled back, he saw she was crying, but he didn’t know if it was for him or for Blue.

There were new members, too, people he didn’t recognize. Their new Intelligence Officer was a patch-in from an allied club that was getting all kinds of media attention. Demon didn’t trust him. He knew Bart Elstad had been foisted on Hoosier by Sam Carpenter in some kind of trade or something, and he’d jumped over Sherlock, who’d been a Prospect when Demon had left, to take the I.O. position. It had been the main gossip in every clubhouse he’d been in for months. Demon didn’t pay attention to strategy or politics, club or otherwise, but he thought it was weird to bring an expert tech guy in from outside, allied club or not.

Not his problem, however. He was a weapon. Unless he was pointed at Bart, he’d let other people worry about the man’s loyalty. In the meantime, they wore the same patch, and that meant something.

The clubhouse ritual and the graveside service were quiet, somber affairs, to the extent that bikers could be quiet. A funeral like Blue’s could not be discreet. The deafening blare of hundreds of Harleys filled the neighborhood air for long minutes as a near mile-long processional rode in formation to the cemetery. But once the engines were silenced, the men were nearly as quiet. In times like these, standing in the middle of a vast field of black leather, Demon could still feel the traces of family.

Even burying Blue, Demon could feel it. He held no animosity toward the man. Demon had broken their brotherhood. He had taken Blue’s daughter’s virginity, knowing full well that Blue would object. What he’d done in retaliation had been within his rights.

He felt differently about Faith’s mother. Margot had called her own daughter a whore. Moreover, Demon had seen what was behind her anger and outrage. There had been satisfaction in the woman’s eyes as she’d stood there, pointing a gun at him, at them. At her own daughter. Satisfaction and victory. Like she’d been jealous of Faith and had been pleased to be able to offer her her comeuppance. Her own daughter.

Yeah, he hated that bitch.

Feeling full of memory and lonelier than he’d felt in a long while, Demon had to go. He was trying to head out without being noticed. He’d gotten all the way out of the clubhouse and was heading to his bike when he heard Hoosier’s voice behind him.

“Deme.”

He turned and saw his former President leaning against the side of the building, smoking a Marlboro. “Hey, Prez.” He walked over.

“You headin’ out?”

“Yeah. Why’re you smoking out here?”

Hoosier gave him a rueful smirk. “Beebs’s on me to quit. It’s hard. I’m hidin’.”

Demon laughed. “I’m no rat. I got your back.”

“Thanks.” Hoosier took a long drag, then dropped the half of a smoke and toed it out. “You like the Nomad life?”

Demon didn’t know how to answer. So he shrugged. “Ups and downs.”

“I been keeping track. You and Muse are close. You have trouble on your own?”

Not understanding where the fuck this conversation could be going or how Hoosier thought it could be anything but painful, Demon shrugged again. “Ups and downs.”

“Come home, brother.”

“What?” He swallowed hard, his heart skittering, even as he doubted what he’d heard.

Hoosier stepped forward so that they were face to face. “No reason for you to stay away now. And we need you. Things are shit for the club all over the country, but we’re the flashpoint right here. We need you. Come home.”

“Home?” He knew he sounded like an idiot. He felt like one.

Hoosier put his hand on Demon’s arm. “Home, Deme. Come home. This is home.”

Before he had any idea something so weak and humiliating was going to happen, Demon broke into tears. He tried to stop, but then Hoosier put his arm across his shoulders, and there was no way he could stop.