Charity For Nothing: The Virtues Book III (22 page)

“A good party, now
that
we can provide,” Pyro said with a grin.

A raucous cheer went up around the table and several of us had our faces split by smiles. Cutter rapped his gavel on the arm of his throne.

“Alright, alright! I guess on
that
note, our business here is concluded unless anyone else has any questions?” He waited but no one piped up. “Right, get your marching orders from your Sergeant at Arms and let’s get back to life as we know it for now. Go on, git.”

Cutter called the meeting with a few more raps of his gavel, and the guys got up, chairs scraping back and bodies dispersing to go do whatever it was that needed doing. I sat, lost inside my own head for a long time, before realizing not everyone had gone. Radar still sat at the table with me. I looked to my brother and sighed.

“A lot of things make sense now,” I said.

“Like?”

“Like you wanting me to get over Corrine. I thought it was just frustration on your part for the time dragging out… but it was more than that wasn’t it? You knew, didn’t you? Before anyone else.”

“Where do you think the pictures came from?” he asked with a sideways, self-deprecating smile.

“I figured, what I can’t figure is why you started looking into Corrine in the first place. What happened?”

“You sure you’re ready for the full story?” he asked.

“Truthfully? No, but there’s no real good time for things like this is there?

“I don’t know, Charity came along and made it the right time for a lot of things for you,” he said slyly and I felt embarrassment heat my face.

“It shouldn’t have had to come to that,” I uttered and Radar reached out a hand and squeezed my shoulder, giving me a shake.

“Bro, we all know how in love with that girl you were, and are. What she did doesn’t change that, and it certainly don’t change a damn thing about how you feel about your baby girl. We get how much the accident, them…” he groped for a word and I sighed.

“Dying, they died, man.”

“See, that’s my point. Two, three weeks ago, if any of us put it that way? You’d have flown off the handle. Charity’s changed things for you.”

“I don’t understand it,” I said grimly.

“What?”

“How a guy like me could be so lucky twice in one lifetime.”

Radar snorted, “Maybe because it’s
a guy like you.
When you going to stop torturing yourself long enough to realize that
you’re a good guy,
Nothing? Better ‘n over half of us motherfuckers. We’re the lucky assholes to have
you
watching our backs.”

We stared at each other and a chair creaked, we both looked over to the bar and Atlas leaning back in his high backed barstool in front of his and Radar’s laptop getup.

“Light show!” he declared grinning and Radar and I smiled and bowed our heads laughing.

“That son of a bitch is gonna get hit again one of these days,” he said.

“You and I both know it, and you and I both know I’d better be there if he does, except now, the lucky bastard has two of us to bring him back from death’s door.”

“She good?” Atlas asked from the bar.

“We saved this drowned kid last week on the beach. She’s really good. I have to say though, I think she’d make a better paramedic than a nurse,” I gave it a second thought, “Maybe an
ER
nurse, would do it, but she’s an adrenaline junky, like me. Paramedic would be better.”

“Trouble,” Radar said, nodding judiciously.

“Sounds like the Captain had her pegged from day one with that nickname.”

More like salvation for me…
I thought to myself.

“How long until the light show?”

“Meh, a couple of hours by what the Doppler’s spewing.”

Radar nodded, he and Atlas were partners in the bounty hunting field and Atlas, in addition to having a thing for maps and tracking had a side thing for weather which worked out well for the Captain’s salvage outfit, and Marlin’s fishing gig. He picked up the handset to the ham radio on the bar and radioed out to the marina and its harbor master, imparting the information. Just one more reason the town loved us, too. Share and share alike. They got the latest and greatest on impending weather before the news stations could even get it out, and in return, when we put out a B.O.L.O. or a ‘Be On The Lookout’ on someone or for something, they came through for us.

Everyone liked to think the worst when it came to this town’s willingness to give us the information we desired, or the willingness to withhold information from outsiders. They liked to think we held this town in thrall, under our thumbs using fear and intimidation tactics. No one ever counted on how this town’s love ran deep for us, and no one damn sure counted on how deep our love ran for
it.
So it was, when it came to citizens and the outlaw life, and I and my brothers had a motto for that: Fuck ‘em.

“C’mon, boys. Let’s go see what the girls are up to, and watch Lightning get his ass fried.”

“Hey, he makes a killing on those things if he gets one.” Atlas pointed out.

“Yeah,
if
he gets one and when they finally sell, he
does
rake it in. Not like it’s consistent.”

I listened to my two brothers’ banter back and forth about a third as we headed out the door, and got on our bikes. We rode back to the Captain’s house, and I felt a growing excitement in the center of my chest. An effervescence I hadn’t felt in a really long time as my spirits lifted and I thought about seeing Charity again.

Second chances didn’t come along every day, and I learned my lesson last night. I wasn’t going to cast a blind eye or turn away from this one again. No way.

Chapter 29

Charity

I put on a bikini and slid a wrap around my hips and a light matching swimsuit cover-up onto my shoulders. My hair I threw into a haphazard messy bun, before I slipped down the back stairs down into the dining room. The club’s prospect, Trike, was in the kitchen, drinking greedily from a glass at the sink, a rifle leaning against the counter at his hip. It gave me pause at the bottom of the stairs.

I caught the corner of his eye because he turned to look, “Hey,” he said out of breath. I smiled and inclined my head, trying to act naturally in the face of the obvious, and larger than life gun. I hated guns.

“Hey, yourself. Everyone at the meeting?”

“Yup.”

“Left behind with the women and children, huh?”

He grinned, “Women, anyhow.”

“Seen my sister?” I asked.

He inclined his head to the closed water closet door and I smiled, “Ah.”

“Water?” he asked.

I shook my head, “No thanks, I was wondering if it was alright if I went outside.”

“How far?” he asked, and I felt a trickle of unease go down my spine.

“The hammock?” I asked.

“Sure,” he started, eyes sliding over me, “You’re not a prisoner, you know. I’m just set to make sure both of you are okay, and I’m only one guy. I was just gonna ask that if it was a walk you wanted to go on, that you wait for Faith.”

I felt my smile slip and surge back to life although a little more watered down than it had been the moment before, “I’m not used to all of this,” I murmured. He picked up his rifle and slung the strap over his shoulder.

“That makes two of us; it’s never been quite like this before, even when the Sacred Hearts girls were here.”

I shook my head, not understanding the reference, and a small grin flickered to life, “I don’t know what that means,” I admitted.

“Sacred Hearts are an outfit up north; they got into it with another club, extreme disrespect. The other club hurt one of their women. For their girls’ safety, they stayed down here for a while, while their men took care of business.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Should you be telling me any of this?” I asked.

He flushed a deep red, and went to the sliding glass door, opening it up for me. I heard the toilet flush and the water run in the bathroom. I took the last two steps and drifted towards the portal to bright sunshine and fresh sea air. The door at my back opened and Faith stepped out.

“Probably not, but don’t tell on him, okay? I don’t want to see him get in trouble for things we aren’t going to ever repeat anyways.”

I held out a hand and Faith drifted up to me, I hugged my sister and she smiled, I smiled back and smiled at Trike.

“Who would I tell?” I asked.

“Exactly,” Faith said with a nod.

“Nothing, maybe. He is our secretary.” Trike shifted uncomfortably.

“What would I tell Nothing?” I asked mock-innocently.

“That I told you –“ Faith and I giggled and Trike stopped mid-sentence, understanding dawning on his face. “Oh! Right.” He said and stepped aside. We slipped past him into the bright warmth of the sun and I paused, letting the daystar warm me.

“You okay?” Faith asked and I nodded.

“A little stiff, a little sore. I was going to lounge out here in the hammock.”

“Sounds good. I could use some cuddle time with my favorite sister.”

“I’m telling Hope.”

“You better not!”

Trike grinned at our banter as we slipped across the patio and down the steps. He lit up a cigarette and perched on the low wall to one side of the stairs while Faith and I hung up our wraps and cover-ups on the hooks at either end of the chains holding the hammock up. It took some laughing and a couple of attempts for us to get into it right, and it spun and dumped us on our asses at least twice, but in the end it was worth it for us to lie side by side in the sun, Faith’s head tipped and resting on my shoulder, talking like we used to when we were kids and it was late but neither of us could sleep.

We raised our hands and traced each other’s matching tattoos on the insides of our wrists and giggled over memories. Finally we settled into staring into the blue sky and talking about the here and now.

“You love him?” I asked her, and glanced at her face. Her eyes were closed but the smile that spread across her lips told me everything it needed to before she used her voice.

“Very much, I don’t know how I would do this without him.”

“You would, you know. You’re stronger than you know.”

“You think?”

“You’re still here, aren’t you?”

Her face lost its easy smile of a moment before, and she sighed.

“A lot of girls didn’t make it,” she murmured.

“Yeah?”

I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know this, but if Faith could live it for going on two years, I could hear about it and not flinch. It wasn’t a fair trade, but it was all I could give her, and so I would.

“Some were killed, some they accidentally overdosed, some tried to run one too many times, others just never came back from their…” she groped for a word and I wanted to help, so I picked one of the most sanitized ones I could.

“Assignments?” I suggested.

“Johns. Customers,” Faith gave a one shouldered shrug. “My therapist says I shouldn’t try to marginalize anything that happened to me. That plenty of people would, to suit their own comfort level and that I shouldn’t do that. That by acknowledging the really horrible things that happened, that by confronting things head on, it will allow me to deal with them better than hiding from them, you know?”

I nodded, “Makes sense, I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, “Don’t be. You didn’t know.”

“Now I do,” I said and knocked my shoulder into hers.

“What about you?” she asked, changing the subject.

“What about me?” I asked, grinning.

“You think you love Nothing?”

The question made me think and finally, I answered her as truthfully as I could, “I think something is there, besides just the absolutely bat shit insane attraction. He’s kind of a hard man to get to know.”

“I didn’t ask about
getting to know
him. I asked if you were falling in love with him.” She rolled her eyes and I laughed.

“Yeah, I think I am, but he’s so damn mercurial,” I admitted.

“I know, I wanted to ask you to be careful, but I didn’t want to upset you.”

“I’m not offended, and I get why you would ask. He
has
hurt my feelings and he
has
been a dick, but…”

“But?”

It was my turn to roll my eyes, “He sets my panties on fire with a look and his dick is magic?” I tried and Faith burst into laughter.

“Marlin’s the same way; I think Cutter is the same way for Hope, so I get what you’re saying.”

“Something changed between yesterday and today,” I said.

“I should hope so!”

I made a face, “Leave her out of it, I’m surprised she hasn’t gone all Corporal Badass on him and beat him up for being a douche the last time.”

“I think she’s letting you fight this particular battle on your own, but word; she’s not happy. You deserve better than how he’s been treating you with this hot and cold routine.”

“I know,” I said softly. “Somehow I think the cold tap has been shut off, though.”

“Why?”

“He promised to talk to me,” I said and it came out sounding childish and skeptical even to me. I winced.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see if he does,” Faith said and sounded skeptical too.

“That’s just it, he did.”

“Yeah? When?”

“This morning,” I said.

“What did he tell you?”

“A lot of things, but I don’t feel like I should share, you know? Nothing is a private person.”

Faith nodded, but I could tell she was a little disappointed. I tilted my head and rested it on top of hers.

“Sorry, Bubbles.”

“It’s okay.”

“Hey girls!” Lightning marched past us dragging what looked like long lengths of rebar topped with neon plastic flags through the sand. Faith and I burst out laughing.

“What are you doing!?” she called out to him; he turned to face us, carrying on with his antics, dragging the long lengths.

“Storm is coming in! Gonna be a light show!” he called back and for some reason, my sister and I looked at each other and found that to be hysterically funny. Dissolving into a fit of giggles that damn near tipped us right back out of the hammock again.

Shadows descended on us and we blinked up at Marlin and Nothing.

“Hi!” I said and both of them smiled down at us.