Unruly
Authors: Ronnie Douglas
Contents
A
LAMO STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF A SEA OF BOXES THAT
filled his new house. He was no stranger to moving. Growing up, he'd been rousted from his bed more times than he could count to move to a new place in the middle of the night. His mother would let the back rent build up as far as she could, and then they'd skip out. Mix in a few turns in foster care over the years when she was arrested, and he'd become something of a pro at traveling light and moving quickly. This time, though, he was moving everything he'd accumulated over several years of stability. He had absolutely no desire to put it to rights in a new place.
Truth be told, this new house was the nicest place he'd ever lived. It wasn't
home
, though. Home was a modest-sized apartment in Durham, North Carolina. Home was having his sister Zoe in the house, badly imitating his Spanish cusswords and singing like a cat in a surly moodâand he missed it.
He'd lost that right when he'd lost his temper. He knew it, but that didn't make it any less frustrating. He'd done the right thing, and there wasn't a minute of it that he regretted. The man deserved every punch, but that was neither here nor there. Truth didn't change facts, and the facts were that Alamo was a big man, and his long-gone father wasn't as white as his mama had been. Race shouldn't matter, but sometimes having darker skin still did, especially in a city where drug traffic was as common as it was in Durham. The police tended to blame it on one segment of the population, those with darker skin. He was a large man with darker skin. To add to that, once the police saw the motorcycle club patches on his jacket, Alamo was far too likely to end up in jail if he stayed in North Carolina.
This time they had a reason of sorts. He had put that
pendejo
in the hospital. And an uptown white boy in his expensive clothes could afford the sort of lawyers who twisted truth until it looked nothing like reality. Alamo knew it, had known it before he'd taken the first swing. Sometimes, though, a man had to stand up for a woman regardless of the cost. Zoe's friend had no one else to stand up for her, so Alamo did what needed doing. It was that simple.
“
You can't just do that!” Zoe snapped at him when he'd walked into the little apartment they shared. “I might not be a kid, but I still don't need my brother in the lockup.”
“
He hurt Ana.”
“
You are not the law, Alejandro. You wear that jacket”âshe pointed at the vest with the Southern Wolves patches prominently displayedâ“and you forget that you're not above the law.”
“
Lobita,” he started
.
“
Don't you âlittle wolf' me, mister!” His sister's hands landed on their customary position on her hips. She was a tiny little thing, but she had the attitude of a dozen girls. “If you end up in jail, I'll . . . I'll find someone big enough to kick your ass. Then where will you be, eh?”
Alamo bowed his head, as much to hide his smile as to let her know he was listening to her chastisement
.
“
You call Nicky, you hear me? You find out where you can move because you're not staying here. That boy . . . he has friends. I don't want this to get worse.”
“
Lobita . . .”
“
No! You call your Wolves, and you
move
. We talked about it for next year, anyhow. Clean start.” Zoe took a shaky breath, let it out, and looked at him. “Ana says thank you and that she's okay. She's . . . sorry.”
“
Don't need to be sorry. She did nothing wrong, Zoe. You make sure she gets that.” His hands fisted despite his intention to keep calm, and the already bloodied knuckles smarted
.
Alamo might not have had a father most of his life, but he knew what a man was supposed to be like just the same. Growing up, he'd just studied what his mother's long list of lovers did. Whatever they did, he did the opposite. That was all the guidance he'd needed
. That
was why Alamo went after the buttoned-up man-boy who'd gotten Ana drunk and taken what wasn't his right to take
.
“
Call Nicky,” Zoe said, and then she turned away. “And put ointment on those cuts.”
She was right. Being the stand-in parent for Zoe had always been harder because she
was
right more often than not. Her excesses of common sense made her awfully hard to handle. Of course it also meant that it was less worrisome to leave her behind with Ana. She'd be okay; he knew that. Both of the DÃaz siblings were survivors.
So far there hadn't been any charges filed, and the jackass who hurt Ana claimed never to have seen Alamo's face. He
did
see Alamo's jacket, though, and it was best for everyone if there was no reason for the police to be looking too closely at the Wolves. The local chapter president, Nicky, agreed with Zoe, so he'd made a call to another chapter. Within forty-eight hours, Alamo's things had been boxed, and he was in Tennessee. Between a move and a stay in jail, moving was a better choiceâbut that still didn't mean Alamo was happy with it.
He looked around the cluttered house. Boxes and furniture sat in a jumble, but he needed to get out. Being here, being alone with his thoughts, wasn't going to do anything but make him think about the mess he'd gotten mixed up in. He didn't regret it. He didn't think he was wrong to defend Ana. That didn't mean the consequences were easy to take.
He walked outside, pulled the door shut behind him, and headed to the bar that the Tennessee chapter frequented. Getting to know his new brothers was the best thing he could do now. The Southern Wolves were the only family he had other than Zoe, and while Zoe would visit, she was still in North Carolina while she finished up her college degree.
By the time he pulled his Harley into the parking lot of Wolves & Whiskey, he felt more like himself. All he needed was to stay focused. No distractions. No trouble. No fights unless they were ordered by the club. He had to focus on his job, the Wolves, and not let himself get invested in anyone else's life. He could keep his distance from everyone. That was the one surefire way to keep his temper under control.
No more bad habits. No more mistakesâregardless of how good the reason for them was. Tennessee was going to be the beginning of a new lifestyle, one that would keep him out of trouble and able to build a stable home for his sister once she finished college.
“E
LLIE
?” N
OAH REACHED
out, fingers catching a lock of hair and tugging like we were the kids we hadn't been in years. Noah was turning twenty-four this year, old enough to have more of a plan for his life, old enough to stop running from anything that had even the shadow of commitment to it.
I was only two years younger than him, but sometimes I felt older. He was a mistake I kept making and had been making since not long after I was old enough to get a driver's license. Noah helped me learn, and we'd celebrated with what had turned into a decidedly unhealthy relationship. I wasn't ever going to get my life together if I didn't figure out how to change my bad habits, and Noah Dash was a bad habit. We were never going to be anything but friends who were naked together sometimes.
He was propped up on one arm in his bed, looking like we'd been doing exactly what we had been.
“Do you want a ride to the bar tonight?”
“I thought you didn't want me on your bike where we might be seen,” I asked, my voice sounding a little more upset than I wanted to admit. He'd given me a lift to his apartment, but that wasn't quite the same.
“What's between us is between
us
,” he said, as if that answer was going to sound less irritating with repetition. It didn't.
I rolled onto my side so I was facing him. “I'm going to drive myself.”
“Come on, Ellie, don't be like that.”
“Leave it alone.” I folded my arms, feeling silly as I did so. It was hard to look stern while we were both naked.
“You know people would misunderstand if you were on my bike regularly.” Noah's fingers trailed up my spine. “Showing up at Wolves is like a statement.”
“Well, we wouldn't want them to
misunderstand
.”
“There's no one else on the bike.” Noah sat up and eased closer. “You know that, don't you? I might go on a date or whatever, but that's not anything. I just like a little strange, you know?”
“I know, Noah.” I'd known that he wasn't particularly
celibate
before we were together, and that hadn't ever changed. It was his way of making quite clear that he wasn't in a relationship.
I wasn't sure whether I was more embarrassed that I'd wasted years in and out of Noah's bed or that I'd resorted to manipulation to try to get him to see that we
were
having a relationship. Either way, the truth of the matter was that Noah Dash wasn't going to changeâand neither was I. I didn't want forever, but I was over being someone's secret. He wouldn't carry me on his Harley more than once in a while because people might think I mattered. God forbid, they might even think I was his old lady. The truth was that I was his best friend and regular bedmate since we were young enough to start exploring. That was it, though.
I used to think it was enough.
I used to think it would change, that he would change.
I even used to think
I
might change.
“Do you think you'll ever let people know about us?” I asked, even now hoping that he'd tell me I was wrong, even now hoping that there was an answer he could offer that would let us keep this messed-up thing that we'd had. Neither one of us had ever tried dating anyone else. We'd settled for this, and it was no good. Not for me. Not for him.
