Weekday nights are dead at Shamrock’s. The customer peak is the after-work crowd of men who aren’t eager to head to Little League practices or the people who aren’t looking forward to heading to their place alone. Pretty sad when a dive that’s lit by neon signs and smells like sweat is the better alternative.
Gotta admit, alone sucks. Cold bed, cold covers, cold heart. Cold like that basement.
The music’s turned down low, but the bass still vibrates along the floor. One of the newer waitresses mops the section near the empty stage. It’s an hour or so before closing and Mom leans against the bar and works on a Sudoku puzzle. Her long black hair touches the surface. She’s in her favorite pair of faded jeans, a red T-shirt, and she’s lost to the world as she scribbles on the paper. She loves puzzles. The harder, the better.
I drop onto the stool across from her, and when she lifts her head, her eyes widen. I only drive her on Friday and Saturday nights and me here on a weekday spells disaster.
“No offense, but your facial expression is one I see often at this bar and usually the order from that person is something hard that will get them drunk fast.”
I don’t respond and Mom frowns. She pulls out a glass, fills it with ice, pours water into it and then slides it to me. “I thought you said the lineup went well.”
“It did.” Told her about it in texts.
“Then what’s wrong?”
I swipe my finger across the condensation forming on the glass. “You know I drink beer at the clubhouse, right?”
“But you didn’t go there. You came here.”
She’s right.
“Chevy.” Mom stays silent until I look up at her. “What’s wrong?”
“Violet asked me to choose.”
She inhales and her shoulders slump when she exhales. I’m aware of Mom’s opinion. She wants me to choose, too, but I’m here because Mom knows when to keep her thoughts to herself. Knows how to be a mom. She reaches across the bar and lays her hand over mine.
“What are you going to do?” she asks.
My lips turn down, my eyes burn and I shake my head to push it all away. “I don’t know.”
No sense telling her Violet threw me out. I also don’t want to scare Mom by explaining that one of the reasons I didn’t give Violet my word to stay silent is because the Riot are watching Violet. My fingers curl into a fist and Mom lifts her hand from mine.
“Why can’t Violet see the club is there to help, not hurt?” I say. “They want to protect her. They want to keep her safe and she keeps pushing them away.”
“You mean she keeps pushing you away.”
“Same thing.”
“Doesn’t have to be. From my mountain looking down, Violet has a point. You were kidnapped because of your association with the Terror.”
I go to argue and Mom holds up her hand. “Chevy, do you love her?”
Without a doubt. “Yes.”
“Do you think she’s a capable, smart girl?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you trust Violet to make decisions for herself? Let’s put the Terror aside for a moment. If she feels her life is better without the Terror, why can’t you respect that? Why are you trying to force something on her she feels is bad for her life? For months all I’ve heard about is how she’s making you choose, but do you not realize you’re trying to shove your choices down her throat?”
“I haven’t chosen.”
Mom’s eyes become full of sadness. “Yes, you have, and by telling her you haven’t, you’re leading her on. By telling her she’s only safe with the Terror, you’re telling her she’s incapable of taking care of herself without some man to watch over her. The words out of your mouth aren’t the only things she hears.”
The ice in the glass shifts as it melts. Mom never minces words and it’s why I’m here.
“I know this may sound shocking, but Violet has thoughts and feelings, too. While you don’t feel she’s been fair, you haven’t been fair to her either. You two are at a breaking point and that is going to require tough decisions. If you don’t feel you’ve made decisions, it’s time for you to man up and make them. If you figure out you have made decisions, it’s time for you to take responsibility and accept the consequences of what you have chosen.”
My stomach cramps and I readjust on the stool. “But the Terror are my family.”
“No, Eli and Cyrus are your family. The rest of those men are your friends. Family and friends don’t abandon you if you decide you aren’t exactly like them. They love you regardless of the path you choose. Question is, Chevy—why do you doubt Eli and Cyrus so much that you don’t think they could love you without a patch on your back?”
The earth stops spinning, but then it spins too quick. Unstable, I stand to find my footing in a world that has been too chaotic for weeks.
“I don’t doubt them,” I say, but my words sound far away.
“You do,” she says. “If you didn’t doubt them, you wouldn’t be stuck in the middle all the time.”
Stuck in the middle. Stuck in the unknown. Doubt. “Did my father choose something different from the Terror?”
Mom pales. “Yes. James wanted something different. He wanted a life away from here and Cyrus wasn’t happy about it. But you already know this without any of us having to tell you. You doubt the Terror because you sense that James’s relationships changed when he left.”
And what happens to my relationship with them if I’m like my father? If I’m restless and choose something else...like football over patching in? “What do you know about the Terror? What is it you haven’t told me?”
Mom’s lips thin out and she closes her book of puzzles. “This is a conversation we need to have at home.”
“Mom—” I begin, but her pointed glare shuts me up.
“Home,” she repeats. “This is a conversation for home.”
I can’t wait for home. Mom has come close to talking to me about my father twice in my life; both times she made the promise to tell me later and I can’t run the risk of time causing her to change her mind again. “Now. You tell me now.”
Mom looks left, then right, then grabs my wrist, dragging me with her to the end of the bar. I loom over her and the confusion and anxiety in her eyes causes my skin to feel like it’s shrinking on my bones.
“James knew I was pregnant with you.”
Her words hit me like a fist to the head. “But you said—”
“Because James asked me to keep you a secret from his family.”
Stunned, I brace my palm against the bar. “So you and Dad were a couple?”
“James didn’t love me and it’s okay because I didn’t love him either. We were friends. Good friends. Through high school and beyond. He was in love with somebody else, but this woman played with his heart. He came to me when he needed the bleeding to stop. I never minded giving my body to my best friend when he was in pain and I never regretted that doing so created you.”
“But Cyrus has always acted like you were...” I can’t finish.
“A one-night stand? Chevy, even if I was, it’s okay. I’m secure in who I am and other people’s definitions don’t define me. But the one-night stand—it’s what James wanted them to think. They didn’t know much about our friendship. He told me he wanted a life separate from the club. At the time there wasn’t anything bad happening, but they seemed to fill every crevice of his being and he wanted to be himself for a few minutes and I was that person he could be himself with.” The edges of her lips turn up. “Your dad and I used to read books aloud to each other. He liked horror, though, and it would give me nightmares at night. I bet you never knew that.”
I didn’t and I drop onto the stool next to me as I struggle with the feeling that I’ve been sucked into an alternate universe.
“James got me and I got him. He wanted a life away from the club even when he was in high school. I was his one friend out of the club and he wanted me to stay a secret. He was scared that if anyone found out they would try to suck me in and he’d lose me to everyone else. And he had good reason to think so—you know my home life was...lacking.”
“Sounds like he loved you.”
“He did once when I didn’t, then I did once when he didn’t, then we didn’t at the same time. We were better off friends than together. Better off lovers than in love.”
I wince. “Never needed to hear the last part.”
Mom steps closer to me and tucks my hair behind my ear. “James left Snowflake after he graduated. He’d come home to appease his mother and see me, but he loved Louisville. Loved his job there, loved his life there, loved it all, but toward the last six months of his life, James became moody. I used to think it was because of this woman who had him tied up in knots, but it was darker than that, he became darker.
“The last time he came home, I told him I was pregnant with you. He was in shock, but he took it well. He told me he’d support me and you any way he could. Promised he’d be involved, but he asked me to move to Louisville. He told me he was breaking ties with the Terror and he didn’t want them to know about his child. He wanted you to be raised away from them.”
“Why?”
She shrugs. “Things were beginning to heat up between Eli and Meg at the time. The war between the Riot and the Terror was beginning. I assumed after he died it was because of that.”
“But you raised me in Snowflake. You were the one who went to Cyrus and told him you were pregnant with me.”
Mom slumps into the stool beside me. “I didn’t go to Cyrus. He came to me. You were six months old and we were barely making it. I had worked at this bar before I was pregnant with you so I could save up enough money to go to the community college in Bowling Green. I was using that money to support us and pay for babysitting so I could work. The money was going fast. One night, Cyrus showed up at the bar asking me if it was true. If you were his grandson.”
“What? How did he know?”
“He didn’t say, but two days later the Riot visited me at my apartment and told me they were the ones who told Cyrus about me and you. They said that there was a war between the Riot and the Terror and they told me they would protect me and you, but in order to do so I would have to disavow the Terror, move to Louisville, and once there they would take care of us.”
“Why did you choose to stick with the Terror? With Cyrus?”
She lifts one shoulder, then lets it fall. “They say the devil you know is better than the one you don’t. I never wanted anyone to take care of me or you. Only person I wanted in control of my life was me. I had enough of that controlling nonsense growing up. The question I have always asked myself is how? How, when it came to James, did the Riot know something the Terror didn’t?”
I close my eyes as pain rolls through me. Because my father was a traitor, that’s how. When I reopen them, I’m looking at a brand-new world—or at least the world I should have always seen. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Cyrus told me it would be safer for you if you never knew about the Riot’s visit and I agreed. I thought I could take advantage of what Cyrus was offering me. Free babysitting while I worked nights. I thought you’d be asleep most of the time and they wouldn’t have much of an influence on you, but I was wrong. If I could go back and change things, I would have left Snowflake the day James died and never looked back. I should have raised you on my own. It would have been hard, but at least you would have been safe.”
I lean forward, kiss her forehead and hug her. So much she’s given up for me. So much she’s done in the name of love. Mom’s right. It’s time I start making choices and owning up to the ones I’ve already made.
One of those promises being the one I made to Violet years ago and reconfirmed in that basement and again last night. I promised to love her, I promised to protect her, I promised to be her best friend. It’s officially time to man up.
Violet
MY CEILING FAN goes round and round. Sometimes I make myself dizzy as I try to follow one blade, sometimes I squint my eyes and the blades blend together. Numb. I’m trying for numb and I’m on the verge of failing. There’s this black ball in my chest clawing to get out, and if I let it out, I’m afraid I’ll never be able to contain it.
A buzz and my head jerks up from the pillow. I roll over to grab my cell off the nightstand. There are no messages and the buzzing continues. Takes my slow mind a moment to catch up, but then my heart takes off at a gallop. I spring out of bed, tripping over my own feet as my knee gives, and hit the floor with a thud.
I reach between my mattress and box spring and pull out the burner phone. “Hello.”
“Yes or no answers only,” Detective Jake Barlow says, “in case they’re listening.”
“Okay.” Even though that’s not a yes or a no.
“Did you find the account numbers?” This guy doesn’t sleep, doesn’t eat, doesn’t understand anything beyond nailing the Riot. He probably doesn’t understand heartbreak either.
I take a deep breath and give him the truth. “Yes.”
“Bank account for the Riot?”
“Yes.” In the computer. The password wasn’t easy to figure out and I almost didn’t think I was going to crack it, but I did. It was something Dad taught me a long time ago when I couldn’t think of passwords I could remember. To take the middle names of people you love the most and spell them backward.
“Account numbers for security company clients?”
“Yes.” Also in the computer. I wasn’t lying to Chevy. I was looking in those files so I could see pictures of Dad. I had already found what I needed at that point.
“Did the Riot tell you how to get ahold of them once you had the information?”
I huff out enough air that my longer bangs move. “No.”
“Figures. We know they’re watching you. They’ll contact you soon, and when they do, you need to contact me so we can set it all up.”
The muscles in my back tense. Setting it all up means being alone with the Riot again. No pressure.
The whine of a knob turning, a creak of someone placing pressure on the floor. “Someone’s up. I’ve got to go.”
Without waiting to hear his response, I hang up, and shove the burner phone back between my mattress and box spring. Hands on the floor, a shove and blinding pain shoots through my knee. My butt hits the floor again hard. I slam my open palms against the carpet with enough force that my skin stings.
Stupid knee, stupid Riot, and stupid Chevy for once again breaking my heart.
A flick of the hallway light and my room feels darker than it was before. I blink rapidly and my stomach flips with the memory of being blinded weeks ago. I breathe out as my lungs tighten with the shadow in the doorway.
It’s Mom. I repeat the mantra in my head over and over again. The Riot wouldn’t be so short, wouldn’t be so slim, wouldn’t be wearing a silky robe and holding on to the door frame with one hand as though if she didn’t she’d collapse.
“Violet,” Mom whispers as if only I could hear and someone who broke in couldn’t. “Are you okay? I heard a sound.”
I sigh. No, I’m not okay. “I fell out of bed. Bad dream.” That I never wake up from.
“I thought I heard Chevy and Eli.”
Another sigh that leaves my lungs empty. She heard them, which means she’s aware Chevy was in my room, aware he left, just aware. My thoughts return to the family who were in line ahead of me and Brandon the night of the kidnapping. Wonder if that girl’s family is all safely tucked in bed. Bet her father would be yell-out-loud mad if a boy was in her room late at night. Bet her mother would be afraid for her daughter’s soul. I wonder wha
t it’s like to have a normal family. Wonder what it’s like to be blessedly normal.
“They left.” Bet her mother and father would have already entered the room, touched their daughter and helped her back in bed. Not my mom, though. At least not with me.
Summoning my last bit of strength, I push off the carpet, use the lamp stand as leverage and haul myself off the floor. Mom shuffles forward like she might help, but hesitates just a foot short of me. In her typical way, she wrings her hands as she watches me hobble to and then collapse on the bed.
“Why do you have to make things so complicated between you and Chevy?” Mom asks, and she moves to stand at the end of the bed.
She’s no longer a shadow, but the aging beauty queen with her hair up in a bun. “A boy like that will take care of you. He’ll work hard, protect you, and you’ll never have to worry or want for a thing. But if you keep insisting on fighting him all the time, he’ll get tired of pursuing you. Boys like girls who play hard to get, but they don’t like it when you take it too far.”
“I’m not playing a game,” I say. “And I’m going to assume that you aren’t talking about marriage. I’m way too young to even think about the rest of my life.”
Mom fiddles with the tie of her robe. “Your father and I were engaged by the time we graduated from high school.”
Yes, they were. It happens. I can’t say it doesn’t. There are people who meet their true love bearing turtle doves on the second day of Christmas, and stay together forever and ever and ever, but marriage out of high school isn’t my thing.
Let’s pretend Chevy and I are those people who meet and stay together, though right now those odds are about negative two million to one. Marriage is still a lifetime away for me. “Well, Chevy’s not Dad and I’m not you.”
“I know,” Mom says in exasperation, “but that doesn’t make me wrong. It doesn’t mean your father didn’t love me and I didn’t love him.”
Great, guilt. “That’s not what I meant.”
Mom purses her lips like she has a million words to say to me, but doesn’t think I’m worth the effort. She then does what she does best with me—walks away.