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“My ‘murder den’? What is it you think we do?”
“I know what you do. You’re fucking outlaws. You kill people. You sell drugs and guns and who the fuck knows what else.”
He stared at her for a long time. The November night was chilly, and the breeze brisk. Eight wore a leather jacket—not his kutte—but Marcella was in jeans, a sweater, and bare feet. She hugged herself more tightly.
“That’s what you think of me?” he finally asked, his voice much lower.
She didn’t, actually. Not really. Yes, everything she’d just said was true, as far as she knew. The Bulls weren’t in the news all that often, but when they were, it was usually something violent and/or criminal. She knew why he’d been in prison. Yeah, she’d been having angst over his presence in Ajax’s life, considering all that.
But the real truth was, none of that mattered under the surface, in the deeps. From the time she was old enough to understand how the world worked, she’d known that crime was a social construct. Laws were created by powerful people for the purpose of keeping their power and shaping the world in their image. To know that was true, all one had to do was look at who got punished by law enforcement and the judicial system and who got excused.
To understand it on a deep and urgent existential level, all one had to do was be Black in America.
Marcella was perfectly comfortable with the idea of outlaws, and, frankly, not overly concerned about using violence to settle scores. As long as innocents weren’t hurt.
For herself. For Ajax, that whole deal was a lot scarier. For so very many reasons, not least among them: he was an innocent, whose father was an outlaw. How could they keep him safe?
Right now, she was mama-bear pissed, and logic wasn’t her primary fuel. “Listen. You told me you were a bad man, remember? What else am I supposed to think?”
“You told me it didn’t matter. What the fuck are we doing if you think of me like that?” The anger had left his voice, supplanted by hurt. He stepped backward, all the way to the other side of the balcony, and leaned against the railing. “Fuck, Marce.”
She’d gone too far. In her burst of fury, she’d blurted out all the shit she’d been working through on her own, and she’d really hurt him. She and Eight had gone prizefight rounds from the day they’d met, but never before had she seen that wounded look on his face.
They’d only been trying a true relationship for a little while, and it was good so far. Really good. Eight Ball Johnston, certified lifelong asshole, was actually excellent company when he reined in the asshole tendencies. In fact, he was even a little bitsweet. There truly was a decent man under the muscle.
But what they had so far was a weird, almost secretive thing. Notalmostsecretive—truly secretive. They spent all their together time at his place, about eighty percent of it in his bed. They hadn’t told Ajax. She hadn’t told any of her family, or the band.
Until tonight, Eight hadn’t told anybody, either, as far as she knew.
Was that the real source of her anger? That Eight had come out before her?Hadhe? What had he told his fellow bikers?
“What did you tell them?”
“Who? The Bulls?”
Obviously. But Marcella refrained from continuing to be shitty and simply nodded.
“I told them Ajax is my son.” He smiled a little. “They were surprised, but I didn’t get into it with anybody. Not yet.” Taking a couple steps closer, he added, “It’s not a murder den, Marce, whatever you meant by that. It can get wild on a party night, but not in a violent way, for the most part. More like an X-rated way. But it’s usually pretty quiet. And the club has been fuckingcrawlingwith kids for years now. We keep a toy chest in the party room, for fuck’s sake. Ajax met some good people who were good to him.” Another couple steps closer. “When he asked if I would take him there, I called you, but you didn’t pick up. In my message I told you I had a question. That was it.”
She remembered that call. It had come in while she was up to her ears in video shit. She’d listened and meant to call back when she had a minute—and then she’d never had a minute until the rehearsal was over.
So he’d known he should ask before taking Ajax to the clubhouse, and when he couldn’t reach her, he’d done it anyway. She could get righteously pissed about that, too. But the question he’d asked out here—What are we doing if you think of me like that—ricocheted off the inside of her skull.
Whatwerethey doing?
She liked him. Two months ago, she would have laughed herself sick at the very idea she’d feel anything other than contempt for the man, but since she’d introduced him to Ajax, Eight had been steadily surprising her, and she was developing feelings.
He wanted a relationship. She’d suspected that he saw her as the easiest prospect, because she was his son’s mother, and together they made a just-add-water kind of family. But he seemed to enjoy her company as much as she enjoyed his, and she was coming around to the idea that he was truly interested inher, as more than the maternal unit in his ready-made family.
They were more than very compatible bedmates. They laughed together. They hadn’t talked much about politics or current events, but what they had shared jelled well enough. He didn’t talk much about his life, past or present, but he was slowly opening up in that way as well.
Sure, Eight was deeply flawed and a hell of a lot more complicated than he let on, but she was no saint herself.
And with Ajax, so far, he’d totally stepped up. It was early, but he was behaving as if he were truly committed.
Examined through that lens, introducing his son to the Bulls was evidence of his commitment, wasn’t it?
She’d told him that who he was didn’t matter because he was the only father Ajax had. She’d meant it. So why was she pissed about the clubhouse? Had she really thought it was some kind of hellhole, like a set from aSawmovie? Had she really thought he’d never introduce Ajax to that huge part of his life?
