?
— Holden —
Iwake in the chair. Gray light. Still early, or early again. I’ve lost track.
Then I see it.
The lingerie is on the floor near the foot of the bed — a scrap of black lace that doesn’t belong to Bea. My eyes move to the condom wrapper on the nightstand. To the sheets, pulled half off the mattress, tangled and wrong.
I’d fallen asleep in the bed. With Bea.
Now, somehow I’m in the chair. And something happened in the bed.
I get up from the chair and make myself look at it properly. Looking for something I can use to contradict what I’m seeing. Some other explanation for the lingerie, the wrapper, the tangled sheets, the smell that isn’t mine or Bea’s.
There isn’t one.
I’d had a blackout before. Years ago, early in the club, before I understood my limits. I knew what a blackout was — the way a chunk of time just ceased to exist, leaving you on the other side of it with nothing in between. Last night to this morning. Nothing in between.
Whatever had happened in this room, I had not been present for it. In any meaningful sense, I had not been there.
I picked up the lingerie by the strap, two fingers, and looked at it. Black lace, small, the kind of thing meant to be noticed. Ididn’t recognize it. Not Bea’s. She owned nothing like this. The scent still hanging in the room wasn’t hers either — I knew her well enough to know the difference, even now, even like this. I set it back down.
Bea’s note was still on the nightstand. I couldn’t look at it. I couldn’t look at any of it anymore. I walked out and pulled the door shut behind me.
Handful found me in the kitchen twenty minutes later. He came in from the garage already grinning, poured himself a coffee, said something about cleaning down my bike before he really looked at my face. Then he shifted into that particular grin — the one he used when he thought he was paying a filthy compliment.
“Didn’t know you had it in you, brother.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Whole clubhouse could hear. Figured that’s what you needed.”
I nearly spat my coffee over the floor.
Whole clubhouse could hear.
That wasn’t Bea. I already knew it wasn’t Bea — the black lace, the wrapper, the scent of someone else on my sheets — but now the picture finished itself. Bea had never been loud here. Not once in six months. She was careful about it, always. Worried about what the brothers would think, how she’d face them afterward.I have to maintain some professional dignity, Holden, she’d said once, half-laughing, a little embarrassed. How could she sit across from them in a session knowing they’d heard her?
So if the whole clubhouse had heard, it hadn’t been Bea.
I managed to keep my face neutral. Nodded once.
Handful was still grinning, warming to it now. He raised his mug like a toast. “Gotta say, didn’t think Dr. Feelgood had it in her.”
The grin was still on his face when I came over the counter at him. I had him by the collar before he could set down his mug, and we hit the cabinets hard enough to rattle the doors.
“Hey—” Dutch’s voice cut through my haze. He was already in the doorway, and the look on his face had shifted from surprised to flat and controlled. He crossed the kitchen in three steps and got both hands on my shoulders from behind, hauling me back.
“Off.”
I let go.
Handful straightened up, rubbing the back of his head. His expression cycled through surprised, then sheepish. “Fuck, Holden—”
“Don’t,” Dutch said. He wasn’t looking at Handful. He was watching me. “Leave. Now.”
Handful set his mug on the counter and backed toward the door. “He’s raw,” he said, mostly to Dutch. “About Danny. He’s just raw.” Then he was gone.
Dutch stood there a moment. He read something in my face and let it go. He reached past me, topped off one of the mugs, and set it on the counter in front of me. “Drink that,” he said. “Then come find me when you’re ready.”
He left.
