Their house was old. There were so many stains on the garage floor, it was a wonder his old man noticed a new one.
But he did and he lost it.
And for the first time, Carson did too.
So he was done.
Carson was going to disappear.
So he didn’t get his degree.
Shit happened.
He went to the bathroom and cleaned up. Then he went to his bedroom, changed out of his bloody tee into a clean one, and grabbed his bag. He stuffed everything he could get into it. After that, he went to the AC register, pulled off the face, and tagged the money he’d saved and the letters he’d written, preparing, getting ready for the day he would be free. He took that and anything that meant anything from his room (there wasn’t much).
Done with that, he moved through the house and nabbed whatever he could that was worth something, including the jug of change his father was always filling. He even emptied his dad’s wallet.
He put everything in the car he’d bought for five hundred dollars and Linus had helped him fix up. He then strode to Linus’s mailbox and shoved in his letter. Across the street and down to Mrs. Heely’s, he shoved her letter in hers.
Ready, he got in his car.
One more thing to do before he went and he was going to do it.
So he drove to Swedish Medical Center.
He knew why he’d snapped with his dad. Mr. Robinson was out that day and word got around. It shouldn’t have. It was no one’s business. But it did.
The man had lost a kid the day before. His wife, pregnant, had a stillborn baby.
And Carson thought that sucked. It sucked so huge, he couldn’t get it out of his head.
That shouldn’t happen to anyone, but never to a man like Mr. Robinson. If gossip was true, and he figured it was, they’d been trying for a while and getting nowhere.
And that was wrong. It proved the universe was fucked.
Because outside of Linus, Carson knew no man who’d be a better dad.
So it sucked worse for Mr. Robinson and the dead kid he lost.
Carson should have come out stillborn.
Mr. Robinson’s baby should have come out bawling so he could have all Mr. Robinson had to give, which was a lot.
He went into the hospital, found where they did the baby stuff, and it took a while—nurses and doctors and other folks giving him looks as he hung around—but finally, he saw Mr. Robinson walk out of a room. He had his head down. Even if Carson couldn’t fully see his face, he could still see the man looked wrecked.
Carson gritted his teeth.
Suddenly, Mr. Robinson’s head came up. He stopped dead right there in the hall when he saw Carson.
Carson put everything into his face. Everything he felt for the man. Everything he felt for the man’s dead kid, who wouldn’t get a lifetime of knowing just how fucking lucky he was to have the seed that made him.
Then he lifted up his hand, palm out, and kept it there.
Mr. Robinson didn’t move except to lift his hand the same way.
But Carson saw his eyes were wet.
He’d give him that. Any man before him, Carson’d think that was weak because his father taught him a long time ago just how weak it was for a man to cry.
He’d been seven when he’d learned that lesson, a lesson delivered with a lit cigarette.
It was not the first or the last time his father had used that method to deliver a lesson, but he’d not even so much as teared up since.
But Mr. Robinson made it different.
He made it strong.
Carson nodded once, dropped his hand, turned on his boot, and walked away.
* * *
In the hospital parking garage, he was opening the door to his car, thanking Christ he got that fake ID, which would mean he could rent a hotel room, when he heard a familiar female voice say, “Carson?”
His body locked, all except his head, which swiveled.
And he saw Carissa Teodoro coming his way.
Cute little skirt. Cute little top. Cute little cardigan. Cute little ankle boots. Tights on her slim legs. Honey ringlets bouncing on her shoulders. Eyes aimed direct at him.
But the instant she got a look at his face, she rushed to him, skidding to a stop on the opposite side of his door.
“Oh my God!” she cried. “Are you okay?”
Not her.
Anyone could see him like this but not her.
In the halls, after his dad went at him, he’d avoid her. Skip the classes they had together.
But there she was.
Fuck.
When he said nothing, she asked, “Are you…?” she looked toward the hospital then to him. “Are you going in to get checked out?”
“Did already,” he lied. “I’m good.”
“You sure?” she kept at him. “You look like you need an ice pack.”
“I do,” he told her truthfully.
“Didn’t they give you one?”
He lied again, “I’ll get one when I get home.”
She stared at him and he had a weird feeling she knew he was lying.
It wasn’t like they didn’t speak.
She said “hey” whenever she’d catch his eyes.
She’d tripped down the stairs when she was a sophomore and he was close so he caught her. She’d laughed, told him she was a klutz, and thanked him for saving her from taking a header. In return, he’d told her it was no problem then he took off.
They’d had a substitute teacher once who was a scatterbrain and kept dropping the chalk, and Carissa caught his eyes in class and rolled hers.
She’d also been in front of him in line at Dairy Queen with her dad once when he was there getting Mrs. Heely a hot fudge sundae and she’d shared that Blizzards with Reese’s Pieces and Cups were the bomb.
There was more, but not enough she’d know he was lying.
Still, she did, and he knew it when she asked, “Are you sure you’re okay?” and he knew she wasn’t asking about his face.
“You heard about Mr. Robinson?”
She did. He saw it move over her expression. Her obvious distress weirdly making her even prettier.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “Sucks. He’s totally awesome. He’d be such a good dad.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“So, you’re upset about him?” she asked.
“Who wouldn’t be?” he asked back.
“No one,” she murmured, still eyeing him.
Totally didn’t believe him. There was something more, but he wasn’t saying what.
“I’m good, Carissa,” he said firmly.
“If you say so,” she replied doubtfully.
Her eyes strayed to his car. She opened her mouth but closed it and stared into his car.
He turned his head and saw what she saw. His bag. His stuff. Shit from his house.
He looked back at her just in time for her to curl her hand on his, which was resting on top of the open car door, seeming not to care his knuckles were torn and bloody.
“Carson,” she whispered but said nothing more.
“I’m good, Carissa,” he stated, and it came out firm but it also came out rough.
Because she was touching him.
God, just her hand on his felt good.
“You’ve never been good,” she shocked him by saying. It was quiet but he could tell it was also angry. Her hand squeezed his carefully. “But you will be.”
“Yeah,” he grunted, feeling a lot, too much. Her touch. Her being that close. The knowledge that she’d paid attention to him like he did her. The warmth in her eyes mixed with anger and compassion.
No pity.
He knew why she was there. Her mother was sick. Some treatment that wasn’t working. Everyone was talking about it. It wasn’t looking good.
She’d lost her sister.
She was going to lose her mother.
And she still cheered their team to victory, took his back with her bitch girlfriends,
was the most popular girl at school dating the most popular guy (who was still a dick and didn’t deserve her), became homecoming queen with big smiles and was nice to everybody.
She didn’t feel pity. She’d lived through a lot.
She felt something else, because she got it like he did. She got that life could seriously suck.
And that something else was something he liked.
Then again, he liked everything about Carissa Teodoro.
“Good stuff for you out there, Carson,” she said, tipping her head very slightly toward his car, telling him he had her support. Telling him she agreed with what he was doing. Telling him she didn’t think he was weak. Pathetic. A loser. Lame. Telling him she thought something else entirely. “Good stuff. A good life. A beautiful life. You’ll get it. I know it. Because you deserve it.”
Not knowing what else to say, he muttered, “Thanks.”
“I’m picking up my mom, but after I drop her off at home, do you want… I mean, are you in a hurry?”
After asking that, she grinned at him.
His world ended.
Right there, his world was done. Because there was nothing that would be better than Carissa Teodoro standing a foot away with her hand warm on his, grinning up at him.
Nothing.
“We could go have a Blizzard before you go,” she finished.
“Gotta get where I’m goin’.”
It killed him, but that was his response.
This was because she was not his to have.
She was golden. Nothing beat her. She smiled through pain and made you believe it.
He’d just kicked his father in the face after beating the shit out of him because he was done getting his ass kicked for anything, much less something as stupid as an oil stain on the garage floor.
That was his life. That was him.
That meant he had no business having a Blizzard with Carissa Teodoro.
She didn’t need the darkness that gathered inside him, bigger and bigger every day. Darkness he had to fight back so it didn’t black him out.
She needed to stay golden.
And Carson Steele had no idea in that moment as the darkness swept through him that, in turning down that Blizzard, he’d made the biggest mistake of his life.
And he’d changed the course of hers in a way that he would have bled to have stopped it. Bled until he was dry so she could have better.
In that moment, in the parking garage outside Swedish, she was disappointed. She didn’t hide it.
But she did curl her fingers tighter on his and lean in.
She smelled like flowers.
“Okay, Carson,” she said softly. “Go after your beautiful life.”
He cleared his throat, pulled his hand from under hers, and muttered, “Will do.”
Her grin became a smile.
Then she proved him wrong.
His world hadn’t ended a minute earlier.
It ended then, when she leaned in, going up on her toes, lifting her hand to curl it on his shoulder as she reached high to touch her lips to his cheek.
He stood stock-still.
“Later,” she whispered into his ear, let him go, and turned. He watched, motionless, as she did that thing she did, skip-walking, her skirt bouncing side to side, her hair swinging, so full of energy and life even after losing her sister, even while losing her mother, she couldn’t just put one foot in front of the other like normal people.
He watched her until she disappeared into the stairwell.
Then he changed his plans.
He didn’t hightail it out of Denver.
He slept in his car. He went to school the next day, doing it late, walking through the empty halls, heading straight to Carissa Teodoro’s locker.
And finally, he popped her lock and put an envelope with her name on it right at the front, propped on her books.
After he did that, he left.
In it was one of his sketches of her. His favorite because she had her head thrown back and she was laughing.
On the back he’d written, You’ll get a beautiful life too. Because you deserve it.
He didn’t sign it.
* * *
When Carissa Teodoro opened her locker and saw the envelope, she knew exactly who it was from.
And it made her smile.
Because she believed down deep in her heart that the cute, mysterious, smart, sweet Carson Steele was right.
She was going to have a beautiful life.
Losing her sister. Enduring her parents’ mourning. Watching her mother fade away.
She’d earned it.
Didn’t matter if she did, she’d work for it.
And she was going to get it.
But she wouldn’t tell anyone, not a single soul, that she didn’t really want it with Aaron.
He was great and all, but when it happened, really happened, she wanted it with someone like Carson Steele.
Someone who had earned it too.
No, she wouldn’t tell anyone that.
Because she actually didn’t want it with someone like Carson Steele.
She just wanted it with Carson.
He’d sketched her.
Even with her mom so sick and him having run away (she knew and she worried for him but she was glad he was finally getting away), that made her happy.
Because that said a lot.
That said maybe one day he’d come back.
And then it would happen.
* * *
She was very, very wrong.
CHAPTER ONE
Shop Window
Tack
Seven years later…
“IT HIM?” KANE “Tack” Allen, president of the Chaos Motorcycle Club, sitting at the head of the table, asked the men sitting around him.
The table was made of shining wood at the edges, the middle of it Plexiglas under which was an old Chaos flag, the first of its kind, stitched by Hammer’s old lady, a stripper who was good with a needle.
Hammer was in the ground. His old lady was a great-grandmother.
The flag remained.
The only ones at the meeting were the elders. The ones who’d been around when the man had been a kid hanging around their fence. The ones who saw. The ones who knew.
Tack knew the answer to his question before Dog answered, “Yup.”
“Anyone know what took him so long?” Big Petey asked.
He got no answers.
Tack looked to the chair that had been vacated by Carson Steele.
Tack had fucked up years ago. He’d seen it in the man’s eyes as he’d sat down across from him, among the brothers he wanted to make his brothers, casting his lot to become a recruit of the Chaos MC.
Nothing in those eyes but secrets.
Yeah, Tack had fucked up. They all had. They’d seen the kid hanging around. They saw him do it a lot. Too much.
They should have taken him in.
Shit was swirling, they didn’t have the time.
Then he’d disappeared.
Tack hadn’t forgotten. None of them had.
They all had their reasons for joining the brotherhood.
And they read those reasons years ago in Carson Steele.
Too late, Tack had looked into it. And he hadn’t liked what he’d found.
This was why he turned his head, locked eyes with Brick, and asked, “Jefferson Steele?”
“Same house, three miles away, same asshole as ever,” Brick answered.
“Our guy have anything to do with his old man?” Tack went on.
Embedded in his big, red beard, Brick’s lips twitched. He knew what Tack saying “our guy” meant.
Tack had made his decision.
The vote would follow.
“Haven’t been there ’round the clock, but from what the brothers have seen since he made his first approach, nope,” Brick told him.
“You know where he’s been?” Tack asked.
Brick shook his head.
“Brother,” Hound cut in and Tack looked his way. “You want any info, you ask. He wants his patch, he’ll tell.”
“Don’t make a man like that share his secrets,” Tack muttered.
Hound nodded. He knew that to be true.
“Saw his work and it’s fuckin’ top notch,” Hop put in, and Tack gave his brother his attention. “He can build bikes and cars like that, we should take him on as brother just for him to make us a mint.”
“We don’t take on brothers because they can build bikes,” Big Petey stated.
“Then you haven’t seen his drawings,” Boz entered the conversation. “He could be a weak-ass runt still tied to his momma’s apron and I’d vote him brother, he could do those builds. They’re wild.” Boz looked to Tack. “They’re Chaos.”
“Lucky for us, he ain’t no weak-ass runt but looks like a man who’d carve your eyes out and do it smilin’, you looked at him funny,” High noted.
He wouldn’t do it smiling, Tack thought. The man didn’t smile. The man had a look about him that said he never had.
This troubled Tack.
And made him believe even more it was time to bring Chaos to Carson Steele’s life.
Brothers.
Bikes.
Belonging.
And, if he was lucky, he’d find a bitch who’d lay to waste that shield Carson Steele had up and bring him bliss.
“More talk, or vote?” Tack asked the table.
“Got nothin’ to say, he’s got my vote,” Hop said.
“Had my vote when he was watchin’ from the fence,” Dog muttered.
“He’s in for me,” Boz added.
Pete, High, Arlo, Hound, and Brick weighed in the same.
As it had to be, it was unanimous when Tack grabbed the gavel and lowered it.
“Preliminary vote done, call the rest of the brothers. The vote stays true, we got ourselves a new recruit,” Tack announced.
Boz pushed back his chair, his hand to his pocket to grab his phone.
Brick leaned forward to nab the bottle of tequila. Men started shooting the shit.
Tack felt Dog’s eyes and looked to the man sitting to his right.
“Warm, red blood flows in Chaos veins, brother,” Dog said quietly. “That boy’s got nothin’ but ice. Stone cold.”
“We’ll see,” Tack replied.
“We will but we got problems, Tack, the kind that get solved with loyalty, balls, and fire. Lived a fair bit a’ life. Done a lot. Seen a lot more. Still, I’d check I had my blade and my gun, I ran up against that guy in a bad mood in a dark alley. So I reckon he’s got the balls. But not sure he’s got the other two in him.”