Bones by the Wood (12 page)

Thea couldn’t help but laugh, almost hysterically so, at her son’s blunt statement.  She swiped a tear from her eye with the back of her hand as she turned onto the road that led to the clubhouse.  “Yes, bud.  Yes, it is.  But it’s just for this weekend and it should still be pretty fun.”  Thea hoped she wasn’t lying to her boy.  They had lives to carry on with.  She wanted them safe, but she hoped fervently that they wouldn’t be living under a shadow for weeks or even months.

Thea parked her car in the same spot that she’d left it in originally.  While she was making sure that Josh didn’t forget his school bag and as she was retrieving the bag of their belongings, Dizzy and Fitz backed their bikes into the line in front of the clubhouse.  There weren’t any gaps.  It looked like the girls had heeded Dizzy’s instruction to be quick.

As they were walking to the door of the clubhouse, under Dizzy and Fitz’s watchful eye, Josh stumbled and nearly tripped.  Thea saw that he was too busy staring at the impressive row of Harleys to watch where he was walking.  It was a mass of black and chrome, some matte, some shiny, and one was actually a very dark blue, but they all managed to look completely individual.  It was worth a look or two, and Thea could understand Josh’s avid observation.

She put her palm behind his shoulders, without actually touching him, to guide him through the door, and then let her hand drop so that he couldn’t accuse her of destroying his street cred.  She decided to aim for Annelle, but she’d gone a step and a half before she realized that Josh had pulled up short.  When she turned, he was standing stock still. His eyes were wide and he was a little pale.  Thea looked around the room and realized what the problem was.  It wasn’t that Josh wasn’t used to crowds, but he wasn’t used to this many men, big men at that, all of whom were openly carrying guns and knives on their persons.  A couple of them were humongous, and would seem bigger to a ten-year-old.  Thea mentally kicked herself for not thinking to warn him better about what he would be walking into, and then kicked herself all over again that he’d had the kind of life where a few men gathering in a room caused him to freeze.

His street cred be damned.  She put her palm on his shoulders at the nape of his neck.

“It’s okay, bud.  They’re all friends.”

“Hey, Josh.”  Dizzy had appeared on Josh’s other side.  “How ‘bout I introduce you around?”

Josh gave a small, tight nod, but didn’t speak.

Thea let Dizzy lead Josh around the room as he introduced him to all the patches first, then to the women that she didn’t know.  It was useful for her, too.  Shaggy and Fitz she knew now.  The short man with the curly hair was Cage, the other shorter man of the bunch, although that wasn’t saying much in a room full of semi-giants, was Easy.  Shaggy’s darker twin was Scooby, and Lyla’s man was, seemingly quite appropriately, Ferret.  The local, whose name Thea still couldn’t remember, was introduced as Nut.  They all nodded and smiled ‘hello’ to Josh. 

By the time her boy returned to her, he was much more relaxed.  Josh turned his face up to look at Dizzy.

“Why’d you call him Nut?”

“It’s short for Wing Nut, ‘cause his ears stick out.”

Josh screwed his face up.  “But that’s really cruel.  Calling people names like that is really nasty.”

Thea bit back a grin as she watched Dizzy try and come up with an excuse.  She could have taken over and thrown him a lifeline, but it was just too amusing watching him struggle.

“You’re right.  It is bad to call people names when you’re tryin’ to hurt them.  But this ain’t like that.  It’s kinda a nickname.  He knows we’re not bein’ nasty.”

Josh didn’t look at all convinced.  Dizzy turned pleading eyes to Thea.  

“Don’t you have some homework to do, bud?”

“Yeah.”  Josh’s tone was utterly despondent.

“Right, well, let’s get you set up doin’ that while me and Aunty Annelle sort out dinner.  We’re havin’ hotdogs.  Oh, and Clarice found your science book in her flat today.  You must’ve left it there.”

Josh didn’t look any more pleased that his lost textbook had been returned.  Thea looked at Dizzy as she spoke, asking with that look if she was speaking out of turn; she didn’t know if the book was needed as any sort of evidence, but he nodded and left her to settle Josh to his homework tasks.  She saw him disappear through the double doors, and by the time she had Josh set up at a table, Dizzy had brought the book over and tucked it safely into Josh’s bag.

Satisfied that Josh was occupied, Thea joined Annelle and Alex in the kitchen to prepare the evening meal.  The advantage of this meal was that it didn’t strictly require cutlery, or even plates much beyond a paper napkin, so everyone was able to eat without moving from their seats, and there wasn’t a mountain of pots to wash afterwards.

Once everyone had eaten, and the cleaning that was required had been done, Josh coerced Shaggy into playing a racing game, although Thea couldn’t say for certain that there was an awful lot of coercion involved.  The huge man and her young son we soon yelling at the screen.  With his hooked nose and heavy brow, Shaggy had appeared to be the caricature of the rough biker heavy, but seeing him now, cackling with laughter, as was Scooby, who was perched on the arm of the sofa that Josh and Shaggy shared, Thea was charmed.

Everyone found some way to occupy themselves.  Some people played cards, others were chatting.  Thea noticed that there were one or two bodies missing.  There were none of the blatant sexual acrobatics that she’d witnessed when she’d visited the clubhouse in the past, and she thought that perhaps, in deference to the presence of a child in the room, people were being more discreet.  She’d been sitting quietly on her own, watching them for a while, when Dizzy joined her.

“You know, when you said you had a boy, ‘til I saw the picture, I would’ve thought Josh would’ve been younger.  You don’t look old enough to have a kid in grade school.”

“Thanks for the compliment.  I think.  I was nineteen when I had him.”

“He got a daddy?”

“I don’t know.” 

Dizzy gave her a look that started off shocked and ended up expectant.

“Hey.”  Thea was a little offended that he seemed to be making assumptions.  “It ain’t like that.  His daddy was a junkie.  I didn’t know how bad until after I got knocked up.  He’s somewhere on the other side of the state.  Could be dead for all I know.  He never tried to contact me or Josh after I left.”

“He let you walk away with his son?”  Even shaded by his hat, Thea could see Dizzy’s brows draw down in disbelief.

Thea shrugged.  She’d gotten past the anger and sadness that had once hurt her so much.  “He cared about the junk more.”

They were interrupted when Cage called Dizzy over, from the looks of it, to mediate a dispute in a game of cards he was playing with Ferret, Lyla and Alex.  After what appeared to be an extremely animated discussion, Dizzy came back to her. 

Before he could sit down, Thea asked, “Are we crashing on the sofas tonight?  Only, I think Josh is about to pass out on Shaggy over there.  I really should get him into bed, or into... whatever.”

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, you and your boy have a bed.  You’ll have to share, though.”

Thea had expected that might be the case, if they were lucky enough to warrant a mattress.  “Of course.  Thank you.”

“Come on, you get your boy and follow me.”

It was a strong indication of just how tired he was that Josh only protested half-heartedly when Thea extracted him from his new friends.  She made sure to thank Shaggy and Scooby, she was sure there were more... adult pursuits that they would rather have been, well, pursuing, but they hadn’t complained once about entertaining Josh.

Dizzy led them through a door off the main room which led to a corridor which was lined on one side by a series of doors stained the same dark hue as the furniture in the main room.  He led them to the door at the end of the corridor, pulled his key chain out of his pocket, selected a key, and unlocked the door.  He opened it, and waved them into the room beyond.  Thea was surprised, but pleased, to see their bag of belongings in the center of the bed.

“Thank you,” Thea said gratefully.  She was exhausted from the adrenaline highs, the stresses and the sheer fullness of the activities of the day and had no intention of doing anything other than lying down on the bed with Josh and falling into a coma.

“No problem, sweetheart.  You sleep well, you too, Josh.”

Josh mumbled something incoherent, being almost fully asleep on his feet.  He listed strongly to one side, but Thea caught him before he fell.  Dizzy chuckled and left them to their room without further distraction.

Thea half-carried Josh inside and managed to get him onto the bed.  She moved their bag to the floor, tucking it under a cheap, black veneer desk that was situated against one wall next to a matching set of drawers.  The basic double bed was pushed against the other wall, and in the third wall was a door which mirrored the one that led into the hallway.  When Thea investigated, she found that it led to a small bathroom.  The walls were white-washed, like the ones in the corridor and the main room.  It was obvious that whoever had been responsible for the changes hadn’t particularly cared about interior design aesthetics.

She pulled Josh’s sneakers, socks and jeans off and managed to maneuver him underneath the plain navy, cotton-covered comforter.  She toed her own sneakers off and pulled her sweatshirt over her head.  She folded it and laid it on the desk.  Then she climbed onto the bed, over the covers, wrapped herself around her son so that he was curled into her body with his back against her chest, and tried to sleep.

Thea had been lying there for some time, she wasn’t sure how long, trying to stop the tornado of thoughts and fears that was whirling through her mind, when the door to the room opened almost silently allowing a slice of light to penetrate the darkness.  She almost shot off the bed, only the fact that she was still wrapped around a sleeping Josh kept her from leaping up or shouting.  She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or even more incensed when Dizzy walked into the room and closed the door behind him.

“What’re you doin’?”  She hissed.

“There ain’t enough rooms for everyone, sweetheart.  There needs to be some sharin’, and you’re in my room.”  Dizzy’s voice was low but clear, just above a whisper.  He started to undress, beginning with his boots.

“You could’ve said.”  Thea hissed back.  She felt like Goldilocks being discovered by the three bears.  “We’ll go.”

“No you won’t.”  Having rid himself of his boots and socks, Dizzy set his Stetson down on the desk and ran his fingers through his hair, shaking it out.  When he started to pull his plaid work shirt off, Thea’s brain froze.  She couldn’t very well carry a comatose Josh right out of the clubhouse, and she had no idea whether there were still people in the main room.  From her past experience, a full on fucking orgy could have been in full swing.

She relaxed, marginally, when Dizzy stopped undressing once he’d laid his folded shirt on the desk next to his hat. She tensed all over again when he came over to the bed and climbed up behind her.  He lay down, still wearing his black jeans and black thermal shirt, and curled around her body the way that she had curled around Josh’s.

Thea tried to move away, tried to put some distance between them but he wasn’t having it.  He curled an arm around her shoulders and laid his palm flat on her chest, just under her collar bones.  She was rendered temporarily speechless by the warmth spreading out from his rough palm as he firmly pulled her back against him.

By no means had Thea been a nun in the ten years that she’d been on her own, but she had never slept through the night with a man.  She had always ensured that she was back in her own apartment, alone in her own bed, before Josh woke up for the day.  This would be the first time that she’d lain down and slept, simply slumbered, with a man since Josh’s father.

She could feel Dizzy’s breath, whispering past her hair, brushing against her neck.  His body was warm and solid behind, around, hers.  She hadn’t relaxed in the slightest, and she tensed more than she knew was possible when his arm moved.  But instead of groping her as she feared he might, he simply moved the arm that had been laid across her shoulders until it curved around her own arm, which lay over Josh, so that his hand rested over hers.