I tip my chin in the direction of her house. “She just popped out, then disappeared back inside when she saw us standing here talking.”
“There’s something odd going on with her,” Kai says.
“Odd how?” Catfish asks.
Kai runs a hand down his face. “She was doing some yard work to remove a fence, and I could see her struggling with it. So, I grabbed a spade and went over there to give her a hand. And she freaked out about me helping her. I keep replaying it. She was scared of me. Not pissed off—scared.”
“And yesterday, she was on a ladder trying to clear out the gutter,” I add. “Had about fifty percent done when I noticed, so I went over there and offered to hold the ladder for her, but she immediately climbed down it, told me she was done, and went back inside.”
When I look over, I can still see the clear line between the weeds still clogging the damn thing and the half she’d done.
“That’s weird,” Catfish says. “While she was at the clubhouse, did you guys ever get into it with her?”
We both shake our heads. “Never.”
Wren glances over at the house. “You know, I’ve been trying to figure out what the attraction of being a club girl is, because hardly any of the bikers I know have ended up with one of them. They seem like they’re nothing but disposable sex objects. I was wondering how young they start. How many times could they have been touched wrong? Spoken to wrong? Dismissed when they needed comfort? Asked to leave instead of being given aftercare? I mean, how much shit do they figuratively have to swallow before they learn just how unwanted they actually are?”
The question hits deep.
Because I’ve never slept with a single one of them, I’m often at the bar when they get kicked out of some biker’s room, holding their clothes to their chest. Some are smiling, but, sometimes, we both pretend I don’t see them crying.
“Maybe that’s it,” I say. “Isla is trying to be different. Karlie told us she got the job at the vet. Now she’s got the house. Doing everything by herself without help. She’s trying to earn some kind of clean slate for herself.”
Wren nods. “Maybe. Perhaps she just doesn’t want reminders of something she feels she escaped. Must have been a bit of a surprise for her to find the two of you across the street from her fresh start.”
Something sympathetic tugs deep in my chest. Old wounds of rejection, of never being good enough, of feeling a bone-deep loneliness. “I hate that for her if it’s true.”
“We can be selfish motherfuckers,” Catfish mutters. “Always assumed Isla and the club girls were there because they wanted to be there.”
Wren places their hand on Catfish’s back. “When you know better, you do better.”
“You’re being generous and selfless, as always,” he says before brushing Wren’s lips with his own. “But, if I’m being honest, I don’t know anyone who paid too much attention to them beyond…well…”
“Yeah, don’t finish that sentence,” Wren says. “And we should get moving so I can buy security supplies before church.”
“Do me a favor,” I say. “Get some cameras for me for Isla’s house. I’ll install them myself.”
Wren nods.
We wave as they pull off the drive.
“I hate that the club, something we love, is what’s scared her,” Kai says as I return to washing the paint off the window. “She deserves to feel safe, whole, and happy.”
I look at him, hating that the only good thing in my life is hurting. “Then we help with that. We can’t move. Not now, when we’ve found our place. But we can co-exist. I’m gonna go fit those cameras one night, while she’s in bed. Leave her a note of what needs doing to fit them to a power source and connect them to her phone, without talking to her directly if she doesn’t want me to. Day to day, maybe we don’t wear our club colors around here unless we’re out on club business or whatever.”
“All good ideas. And so very you.” Kai puts his palm on my cheek.
I huff. “Not like I can bake her a cake and put ‘we’re not gonna hurt you’ on it in icing.”
“You’re a good man, Bear.”
“Only for you,” I say.
“Obviously not.” He points over to Isla’s house, then shoulder checks me gently. “You finish cleaning up, I’ll go make the French toast.”
“Then make sure it’s cooked through properly.”
He flips me the bird. “You want to go make it while I finish up here?”
