Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52639 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52639 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Big ones.
Small ones too. I wanted to find love.
I had it and let it go.
I guess I accomplished that goal, meeting Wesson.
Since being shot, my only goal is to survive.
When life is literally hanging in the balance it changes perception of what matters.
People matter. Family matters. Protecting the ones you love … matters most.
Staying away, I protect them all.
If only I knew exactly what I was protecting them from.
SIX
WESSON
Boomerism: Trying to leave well enough alone is often times easier said than done.
The clubhouse is full tonight. Hard rock plays on the speakers with two prospects behind the bar and a couple of ol’ ladies stepping in to help out too. It’s another Friday night at the compound.
I take a pull from my longneck Coors bottle watching everyone around. Maritza and Dia are dancing around with Diem, Karsci, and Kylee. The song changes to a nineteen-seventy-five classic from Bad Company, Feel like makin’ love comes on. I can’t stop the smile that builds as I watch my mom take my dad by the hand and to the dance area. Doll and Sass see it, doing the same with Tripp and Tank.
Here we are watching some of the oldest and strongest men in the club dance with their ol’ ladies like they aren’t the badass motherfuckers I know them to be. Love does crazy shit; they are all proof of that.
“Hold my beer,” Colt says standing beside me as he hands me his bottle. Diem is crooking her finger at him and like a damn dog, there he goes.
Who the hell am I kidding? If Emmalee was here, I would have her on my lap moving to the song.
Colt smiles while pulling Diem close, her back to his front while they sway to the song, him leaning down to sing in her ear. I’m happy for him, for them, all of them.
Envious too.
A movement catches my eye to my left, I don’t react fast enough before Karma is tapping my beer bottle. Silly game, but we all do it from time to time. Drinking it up, I get a distraction from my mind.
Dillon “Karma” Jacoby is huge. I know the motherfucker is pushing six feet five inches or more. He is broad shouldered and a no fucks given kind of guy.
“Dad night out?” I joke with him.
“Fuckin’ coparenting shit sucks. It’s her weekend.”
There is nothing Karma takes more seriously than the club except taking care of his son. I don’t know much about his ex-wife other than she’s a bitch who goes out of her way to make Karma’s life hell. She isn’t always reliable to get their son, Hollis, and it fucks with the kid’s head. I will say the older his son gets the more he seems to come to terms with it. The longer it goes on, the less patience Karma has for any of it. Solid dude, but we all have our breaking points.
“Find a barfly and enjoy the time you have away.” I tell him, hoping he can manage an escape for the night.
“Brother, you need to find a barfly and fuck Emmalee away,” he counters taking a pull from his beer. “Shit hasn’t been right with you since the broad left.”
If only it was that simple. I can’t even think about another woman. It’s more than sex. It’s real connection. Rather than respond, I take another pull from my beer. We stay in place together in silence watching everyone around us have a good time. What is there for me to say? He’s not wrong. I’m not the same without her.
Wallflowers, that is what we are tonight apparently. Then again, since Emmalee left, I find I prefer to be in quiet alone. Karma is the lone wolf like that on a regular basis. He’s a solid brother, don’t get me wrong. He just isn’t the most social.
Before Emmalee left these gatherings meant I would turn on the charm. Talk to everyone, make jokes, spin around in my chair to the music, and have a great time at least that is what they all saw. Never let them see you sweat, there was an old deodorant commercial with that phrase. For years now, that is my damn anthem. I didn’t and still don’t want my family to know I am not okay. Sometimes the people who can put on normal the best suffer inside the most.
I’ll never tell any of them though.
The song ends and moves to another one changing the people dancing. Diem stays out with Maritza, and I can’t help but notice Karma’s gaze. Didn’t know he had taken a notice to her. She helps with Hollis, getting him to and from school when Karma has him. I know she even goes on field trips with the kid for school.
“Some shit burns deep even if you have never really had it, huh?” he mutters looking directly at Maritza and I nod. “Shake her off, Busted. Women are a special hell, brother.”