He almost seemed…human.
Again his eyes focused on me and he continued. “You see, Ray, when you were pregnant with Samuel, we took every precaution possible not to alert the media of your ‘condition.’ And back then I didn’t carry the weight that I do now, so it was easier to keep things hidden. But now that you’re back, from Paris for the summer, as I have led them to believe, it will be good for you to show yourself. They’ve spotted Samuel, and multiple outlets have contacted my office inquiring about who he is. Some reporter from the Times even went as far as to look up his birth certificate. So now it seems as if we have a situation on our hands which requires a…delicate touch.”
He wiped his mouth with his linen napkin and set it down in the middle of his empty plate. “And, of course you don’t remember, but we’ve had in-depth conversations about what was best for our family. And for your new family.” The senator gestured to Tanner and then toward the couch. “Now is a better time than any. You don’t need to make a big spectacle about it, just a courthouse visit. Something on paper to make the media see this union and Samuel as legitimate. You don’t have to live together, not if you aren’t ready. It’s just the documentation we need now to deter any campaign supporters from deflecting.”
“You want us…to get married?” I asked. My hand curled tightly around the napkin in my lap. Tanner’s hand reached under the table and covered mine.
The senator cleared his throat. “If you don’t, there is a big possibility that I lose the election, because my campaign is heavily based on conservative family values. Over the years, I’ve spent a great deal of time garnering support because of those values I stand by. If you don’t make this little family of yours something legitimate, I run the risk of looking like a fraud and letting down all the people whose asses I have been kissing since day one. This could snowball into the fastest decent into political nothingness this state has ever seen.”
“I don’t understand how my decisions would affect your campaign. It’s not your life. It’s mine,” I argued.
“No, of course you don’t understand,” the senator said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But understand this, even if my campaign survives the teen pregnancy scandal, it would never survive a torrid affair with a convicted felon ten years your senior. I wouldn’t survive until the end of my term, never mind the end of the election.” He folded his hands over his plate. “But if you do this, if you marry Tanner, then they won’t have a need to look any deeper and hopefully the name Brantley King will never be part of the equation.
This is where the senator and I disagreed. I wanted nothing more than for Brantley King to be a part of my equation.
“What about what Tanner wants? You didn’t even ask him.” I stated.
Tanner remained quiet, pushing around the pasta on his plate.
“Just think about it,” the senator said, rising from the table. He nodded and left the room without another word.
Tanner was still holding my hand under the table. I used taking a sip of water as an excuse to pull my hand from his. I shook as I raised the glass to my mouth, the glass clanking against my teeth.
Panic set in suddenly and I dropped the glass I was holding when my chest tightened to the point of constricting my breathing. With my hands clasped around my throat I watched as the glass bounced off the wooden table and crashed on the floor, shattering into a million little sharp pieces, the water running like a river into every nook and seam of the floorboards.
The senator wanted me to marry Tanner in order to help his campaign and career. Tanner wanted to marry me because he was eager to pick up where we’d left off before I’d lost my memory.
But what did I want?
I wanted Sammy. I wanted King. And I wanted Tanner in my life, but wasn’t yet sure of how he would fit.
But none of that mattered. Because if I married Tanner, even on paper, there was no doubt that he wouldn’t live long enough to make it to our first anniversary.
With King I was strong, willful, and determined. I liked who I was when I was with him.
But in the house I’d grown up in, surrounded by people I’d known my entire life.
I had no idea who I was.
Chapter Fourteen
Doe
Maybe it was all the marriage talk. Maybe it was me feeling alone all the time, even though I was surrounded by people. But I was started to fucking lose it.
It had been four weeks with no word. No sign. No nothing from King. And I was wearing a hole in the carpet of my room pacing back and forth until a reckless idea hit me.
King had said it wasn’t safe for him to contact me, or for me to contact him. But if I tried to get word to him through Bear’s MC, then it wouldn’t directly link me to King in the eyes of anyone looking in from the outside.
No sooner did the idea take hold was I running downstairs. I grabbed a set of keys off the rack hanging by the door and sprinted to the garage, hopping into a big beige Lexus that reeked of floral perfume.
A scent I knew that was familiar to me.
A scent I knew I hated.
I put the key in the ignition and turned the engine on. And then I paused.
I don’t know how to fucking drive!
I pounded my fist on the steering wheel and then my forehead in frustration. But when I’d just about given up hope I glanced up from the wheel and saw something leaning on the wall of the garage that I knew instantly I could drive.
By the time I pulled up to the Beach Bastards’ clubhouse, my anxiety had me out of breath, but I wasn’t the least bit deterred.
I jumped off and let the moped fall to the dirt. I ran up to the gate where a skinny kid was manning the door. His cut read Prospect in huge letters. He didn’t have a name patch. “You lost or something?” he asked.
I rested my hands on my knees and held up a finger, still catching my breath. “I need to speak with Bear, if he’s here,” I huffed, “and if he’s not, I just need to talk to someone who can get a message to him, or to King.”
“Oh, I remember you. From the party, before all the shit went down. Glad to see you ain’t full of bullet holes.” He hopped of his stool. “Hang on.” He slid the gate open and disappeared behind it.
He was gone for what seemed like an eternity. Although the sun had gone down, the humidity had wrapped me in a pool of water suspended in the air and there wasn’t a single spot on my body that wasn’t soaking wet. I looked like I’d peddled through a rainstorm, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
I waited on the prospect’s abandoned stool, kicking the gravel around under my sneakers. When he finally reappeared, he wore an apologetic look on his face. A man with a grey beard, older version of Bear, except slightly shorter and rounder, followed him through the gate. The patch on his cut said President. He lit a cigarette and shoved the lighter into the pocket of his shirt. His face was heavily lined with the signs of age, but there was no mistaking the freckles under his eyes. The same ones Bear had.
“Good, you must be Bear’s dad. I need to talk to him…,” I hesitated, unsure of Bear’s dad’s name.
“Chop,” the man filled in the blank, pointing to his name patch. “You the one King claimed?”
“Claimed?” I paused, remembering that Bear had used the same term on the dock months before. “Um, yeah. I think so.”
“You’re the girl they sprayed bullets in my house over,” Chop said, shifting the toothpick that hung out of his mouth with his tongue. “’Cause we got our own trouble here without you bringing that shit to my door.”
“No, that was Isaac. He cornered us, he tried…” I shook my head. “Please, I just need to speak with Bear, just for a minute—”
“Ain’t here.” Chop shrugged.
I dropped my shoulders in disappointment. “Then can you please just get a message to him or King for me?” I asked, hopefully.
Chop narrowed his gaze at me like I’d just stepped on his foot. He pointed a finger at me accusingly. “Like I’d told my son a million fucking times, Brantley King was not a member of this MC and therefore was no concern of mine.”
Was?
Chop turned around but then he stopped and looked back at me over his shoulder. “King’s dead. Him and Bear both.” He didn’t wait around for my reaction before disappearing back behind the gate.
I dropped to my knees, the gravel slicing into my skin as my world came crashing down around me.
Preppy. Bear.
King.
All dead.
They’re. All. Dead.
“Nooooo!!” I wailed.
The prospect lit a cigarette and looked down at me with pity. He turned away from me, refocusing his eyes on the empty street.
“Sorry, kid.”
Chapter Fifteen
Doe
Never again would I be able to look at a bow tie, a motorcycle, or someone with tattoos without struggling for air.
It was only because of Sammy that I didn’t wish I was dead too. He was the only reason I was able to swing my legs over in the morning and plant my feet on the floor.
I loved the tattoo on my back more than ever because King had given it to me and it was something I would carry with me forever, a permanent piece of him.
An idea hit me, and once it took hold there was no letting go, and there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to make it happen. Because for the first time since finding out that King was dead, a little sliver of hope cracked through the cloud of despair.