Rome

CHAPTER 8

Rome

I was sprawled out under the pool table, trying to get the stupid thing level, when several pairs of worn motorcycle boots were suddenly the only things I could see through the legs I had jacked up off the floor. It was early afternoon, so the bar was dead and Brite had taken off to run some errands. I guess that left me sort of in charge, and if a bunch of bikers were going to show up and trash all the hard work I had put in to this place over the last few weeks, it was going to get unpleasant really fast. I took a quick count, noting that there appeared to be five of them, before I slid out from under the table and wiped my hands down on my jeans.

Bikers looked like bikers, but these guys were clearly the top branch of the club. I knew badass when I saw it, could feel the don’t fuck with me coming off this crew. These guys were no prospects, no sidewalk bikers looking for a little action. These dudes were the real deal, and if they wanted a piece of me, I was going to have to work way harder at staying alive than I had the last time I tangled with a bunch of bikers.

The guy that was clearly the leader of the crew took a step toward me and I had to stiffen up to avoid taking an automatic step back. I lifted the eyebrow with the scar in it and crossed my arms over my chest. I could do badass as well as the next guy if I had to.

“You Archer?”

I nodded slightly and kept an eye on the other four guys who spread out to flank the man talking to me.

“Brite told me some of the newbies came in here and fucked shit up. Tried to start some business with you and then looked like little punks when you finished it. That true?”

I just nodded again. I wasn’t sure what this was all about, and I didn’t know if more detail would help or hurt my case at this point in time.

The guy shared a look with one of the other guys over my shoulder and moved to pull up the edge of his sleeve. I blinked in surprise when I noticed he had the exact same tattoo Brite wore on his forearm.

“Brothers-in-arms, kiddo. That shit don’t fly with me and it don’t fly with the Sons of Sorrow. The club knows the Bar is off-limits and that anyone who did service deserves respect. That little ass-wipe is getting his rocker cut off. We will not have prospects or anyone around us who can’t abide by the rules and show proper respect.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what getting a rocker cut off meant, but it sounded like it was all in my favor, so I nodded once more and pushed off the table.

“Thanks. I’m just glad nobody got hurt any worse or the bar didn’t end up even more trashed.”

“Brite likes you. Thinks you’re a good kid with a lot of potential. That means you’re good people in my book. We look out for good people.”

I wasn’t sure if that was entirely true. I knew from Cora that Asa was still in a cast from a beat-down by a Southern chapter of the SoS, but I guess as long as they didn’t want to start anything up with me, I couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I shook the guy’s hand but didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until every last one of them trekked back out the front door. I went up the bar to where Darcy had stuck her head out of the kitchen to keep an eye on things.

“That was intense.”

She nodded and handed me a glass of water from the other side of the bar. “Brite ran around with them when he got back after his first deployment. He was into all kinds of bad stuff. That was why wife number one left.”

“I could see that. Those are some scary-ass dudes.”

“Brite was just as scary. Still can be when he puts his mind to it. You’re lucky you remind him so much of himself when he was around your age.”

I was starting to agree with her. I was thinking more and more that even though I was at some serious loose ends, I really was a lucky guy. I liked hanging out in the bar and all my diligent work had it looking less like a hole in the wall and more like an actual, respectable establishment. I was learning the regulars, learning their stories, and it made me feel less alone the longer I spent here. I had spent the last week with Cora, either at her place or mine, and the more time I spent in her company, the harder it was to want to be away from her.

She let me take her out to dinner and a movie and we ended the night back at my place. The following night she surprised me by showing up at the bar and demanding that I let her take me out. I had never in my life had that happen before, but I let her have her way because she was so damn cute and I could tell underneath her usually sassy attitude she was really freaking out about the unprotected-sex thing. I probably should be more concerned about it than I was, but I made sure I was prepared now and I just tried to do my best to stay calm about it since she seemed to be worried about it enough for the both of us.

My brother was not stoked at the newest development in my love life and I had been subjected to no less than five lectures from him, Nash, Shaw, Ayden, and Rowdy; even Asa had given me the what for about all the bad things that would befall me should I leave her high and dry or decide that her big mouth was too much to handle. I was sure Jet would have gotten in on the rake Rome over the coals action as well if he had been in town. I didn’t even want to know what would happen if they found out she was worried about a possible unplanned pregnancy.

I really liked spending time with her. She was spunky, said what was on her mind, and had no trouble letting me know if I was drifting off on her, getting too lost in my own head. We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, but she made me want to laugh, and looking at her made me smile. Not to mention I couldn’t keep my hands and mouth off of her. She was just so sweet and so easy to get to respond. I had never been with anyone like her before. She was all glittery and shiny, so I had no difficulty finding her in the dark that sometimes clouded my vision, and so far I had been lucky. With her sprawled on top of me, I somehow managed to sleep through the night. Not a single nightmare, no incidents of waking up to bloodcurdling screams. It was a really nice change of pace and reason alone to keep her around.

I was going to ask Darcy if she would make me something to snack on for dinner before I headed over to the shop to grab Cora for the night, when the chair next to me suddenly pulled out and was occupied by the last person I would’ve expected to see in the bar. Eyes that matched my own looked back at me and it floored me how old my dad looked after nearly a year of no contact. We had similar dark hair and the same blue eyes; his were paler, more like Rule’s, and he was tall and broad, but not nearly as tall as I was. He was always a sturdy, steady guy, but clearly since the last time I had been home, things had taken a toll on him. He looked almost as much like a stranger to me as I thought I would look to him after all this time. Today was apparently my day for unwanted visitors.

“What are you doing here?”

He sighed and asked Darcy for a cup of coffee. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

“That’s all you have to say to me after ignoring me and your mother for a year?”

“How did you know where to find me?” I lifted an eyebrow and then answered my own question. “Shaw. That little girl can’t stop trying to pull this family together.”

“Rome.” He sighed so heavily I felt it weigh across my own shoulders. I had always wanted to make my folks proud of me. They had never really been excited about my choice to enlist when I was younger, but as time went on they grew to understand my motivation, my drive to help others, be active in making the world a safer place for my brothers and for them. It bothered me to see the disappointment in his eyes and marked on his face.

“This has to stop at some point. I fought to bring Rule back into the fold, told your mother it was this family or I was done. I’m not going to let another one of my boys go, not without one hell of a fight. I let you stew, let you and Rule act like it was a personal affront we never talked about Remy as a family, but the time for that is done. We need to figure out how to move forward from this point on. End of story.”

I felt like a little kid getting scolded for getting his clothes dirty while out playing. I rubbed a hard hand across the back of my neck and looked down at the bar I still needed to strip and refinish.

“It’s more than just Remy and the secrets. It’s the way Mom treated Rule, it’s the way everyone just let Remy use Shaw. It’s the fact I don’t feel at all like the same guy I was when I left last time. I don’t know how to fit into this family anymore. I don’t know what role I’m supposed to be filling.”

I didn’t have the nerve or the right words to try to explain to him that I didn’t know how I would make it through having him and Mom look at me like they didn’t know who I was anymore. Disappointment I could handle, dismissal I could not, so instead I was hiding and avoiding it altogether.

He swore softly and reached out to clap me on the shoulder. “There is no fitting in. You’re our son, no matter what; that role is yours until the end of time. That’s what I finally had to get across to your mother about Rule and what we should have let Remy know before it was too late. We take you any way you come, Rome, even if it isn’t the same way you always were. The life you lived, son, that changes a man. I understand that and so does your mother.”

He cleared his throat and pushed the bar stool back so that he was standing next to me.

“Come to brunch on Sunday. Shaw said you’re seeing one of her girlfriends, bring her along. I work very hard every week to make sure your brother and that girl of his know how much I love them. We all owe Shaw more than we can ever repay as a family. She’s done more for both those boys than we can probably imagine. Come spend time with your family, Rome.”

He didn’t give me a chance to say “we’ll see” or “no thanks”; he just turned around and went back the way he came. Being an Archer was never exactly easy, but it was like a badge of honor to be one and survive it. I really wished I could just slide behind that bar and mix a drink, but I was doing a pretty solid job of staying sober and just beating back all the crazy stuff going on in my head with force of will alone. I didn’t want to mess that up just because I was being a sissy and couldn’t handle getting told off by my dad. It was hard to keep my head buried in the sand when he had single-handedly just annihilated all my misplaced fears about going home and facing them.

I asked Darcy for that sandwich finally and went to finish getting the pool table leveled. Brite was back by the time I was done and headed out. I told him about the guys from the Sons of Sorrow and he just snorted and told me the kid that attacked me was nothing but a young prick. He told me that I better watch my back, because getting a rocker stripped from a biker’s cut was apparently a really big deal and the scrawny guy was likely to be pissed as all hell that it was happening. It meant there was no way in hell he was ever going to be a member of any motorcycle club, at least not here in Denver, and likely anywhere else. I blew the warning off, figuring it was all said and done, and besides, I was used to watching my six anyway.

What wasn’t as easy to blow off was the conversation that he leveled at me after Darcy ratted me out about the awkward conversation she had witnessed between me and my dad. I was on my way out the door to get my little punk-rock pixie, but he followed me out to where the Harley was parked. I threw a leg over the bike and looked up at him.

“What’s up?”

He ran a hand down the length of his beard, a gesture I was getting used to. It typically meant he was going to say something to me that he really wanted me to hear.

“Your old man came by looking for you today?”

I nodded. “He found me.”

He crossed his thick arms over his burly chest and tilted his chin down at me.

“You know that Darce and I have a girl?”

I shook my head in the negative. Neither had ever mentioned a daughter to me.

“She’s younger than you. Just turned twenty and is a handful and a half. She didn’t take it well when her mom and I split. I can barely get her to spend five minutes alone in the same room with me before she’s at my throat about this or that.”

I picked the bike up off the stand and balanced the heavy weight between my legs.

“That sucks, but what does it have to do with me?”

“Nothing. I just know as a parent, we make mistakes. We aren’t perfect but that doesn’t mean we don’t love our kids. You’ve got a lot of stuff going on in your life right now, Rome. Don’t let the things and people that have always been there slip away.”

I just stared at him because I didn’t know what to say to that. I liked Brite a lot, looked up to him, was starting to really view him as a mentor, but I didn’t need him trying to fix every aspect of my life. I was going to turn the engine on and take off but he put a hand on my shoulder to stop me.

“I’ve got some stuff going on over the next few weeks, and I would appreciate it if you kept an eye on the bar and the guys while I’m in and out. I can pay you for it.”

“I don’t know anything about bartending, Brite.”

“I said keep an eye on it, not mix drinks. Darcy can tend bar, or you can find someone to help you out until the end of the month. Granted the tips aren’t anything to write home about right now, but you’re getting the place cleaned up real nice so that might change in the near future.”

“So what exactly do you want me to keep an eye on?”

“The crowd in the evening. The regulars. Make sure the guys aren’t going off the rails. Make sure everyone acts right and gets home safe. I appreciate all the work you’ve put into the place, and I figure you’re not in any hurry to see it all messed up. I’ll ask Darce to show you how I do the cash out at the end of the night and how to drop the deposit.”

“I guess I can manage all of that. Just for a couple weeks?”

I thought I saw him grin at me but with all that facial hair it was kind of hard to tell.

“For now. Don’t write your folks off forever, son. They need you just as much as you need them.”

I wondered if that was true. They used to need me to keep Rule in line and act as a buffer, then they needed me to hold it all together when everyone vanished into a cloud of grief. Now I didn’t really know how I fit into the fold other than as the troubled oldest son, and that was a big part of what made it so much easier for me to stay away.

I started the Harley and pulled out of the lot. It only took ten minutes to make it to Capitol Hill. I usually just left the bike or the truck at the apartment and walked to the shop since parking in the area sucked. Plus I refused to ride in that little neon clown car Cora drove, so we usually had to do some switching off on how we got from one house to another. I pushed open the door and walked up to the counter. She wasn’t behind it, which was unusual, but my brother was leaning against the desk talking to Rowdy.

“Hey.”

He tilted his chin up in greeting and motioned toward the closed door that was off to one side of the shop.

“She has a late client. She’s probably gonna be a few. You wanna go get something to eat when she’s done?”

“I ate at the bar. Speaking of which, do you know anyone that knows how to bartend that can help me out for a few days? Brite asked me to keep an eye on the place for the next few weeks and I don’t know a thing about bartending.”

“You know how to drink vodka like it’s water.”

I popped him in the shoulder. “I remember more than a few nights where Crown Royal made you its bitch, so let’s not point fingers.”

Rowdy chuckled and made his way over to join us. I really wanted to dislike the guy. I didn’t like that he was so familiar with Cora, that the two of them had such an easy camaraderie, but he made it hard. He was just an easygoing and totally affable guy. Plus his quirky sense of humor made him entertaining as hell to hang around.

“Talk to Jet. He knows more people in this town than all of the rest of us combined. I bet he knows someone that can help you.”

That was a good idea, but Jet was gone more than he was home anymore, and when he was around he was usually wrapped up in Ayden. I didn’t envy them trying to juggle a new marriage and so much time apart, but they looked happy and it seemed to be working just fine for them.

“I’ll do that.” I turned to look at the door as a guy came out followed by Cora. Her hair was flipped up into a fancy curl at the front of her head today and she had on a short orange skirt. Her top was bright purple and she had on black combat boots that laced up to her knees. She smiled at me when she saw me leaning next to Rule and I caught the way the turquoise eye brightened just as the brown one darkened. She was like a kaleidoscope of color and emotion, and whenever I looked at her, I never knew what was going to be reflected back at me.

The guy leading the way out of the room looked at me then back at her as she took her seat back behind the desk.

“Remember, be careful with it. They take a long time to heal.”

He nodded and forked over an amount of money that was surprising and gave her one last look. She just smiled sweetly and looked up at me.

“You ready to go?”

I shrugged as she started to do the cash out for the end of the day.

“What part of that guy’s body did you just shove a needle through?”

She lifted her pale eyebrows at me, and I elbowed Rule in the side when he asked, “Do you really want to know the answer to that?”

I made a face. “Seriously?”

It was her turn to shrug. “Don’t knock it until you try it, big guy.”

The idea of having anything sharp and pointy down there made me break out in hives. No thank you, I would keep my junk metal-free. Not that I didn’t like her sweet little hoop that was attached to all my favorite parts of her, it was hot as hell, but I didn’t need a door knocker hanging from my dick.

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

She paused in her counting to smirk up at me, and I wanted to kiss it off her face. “That’s okay, little brother has enough down there for you and everybody else in the room.”

Rule burst into laughter and Rowdy chuckled, probably because the idea of Cora with her hands on anything in Rule’s pants made me scowl at both of them.

“I could have lived forever without knowing that.”

She laughed and got up to make her way around the desk. She threw her arm across my shoulders and kissed my temple where the end of my scar hooked down by my eye.

“Don’t worry, his was business, yours is all pleasure. Let’s get out of here.”

I followed her and the guys out so she could lock the door. The boys were gonna head to the Goal Line and grab a beer and some wings. I wanted to get Cora someplace alone and horizontal so I could make her forget she had ever been up close and personal with any part of my brother’s anatomy. She wanted to spend the night at her place even though mine was closer because she had breakfast plans with Shaw and Ayden in the morning, so I told her I would just meet her there after I went and picked up the truck. It was kind of an even trade-off because my place was closer to the shop and hers was closer to the bar. My place generally had less people in it, but I liked Ayden and Jet, and Asa was a character. Plus her bed was awesome, even if it was covered in pink.

Cora was in the kitchen when I walked in the front door. She was puttering around making something for dinner and talking on her cell phone. I didn’t want to interrupt, so I plopped down on the couch and looked up as Asa came into the room. The walking cast was off of his foot, but he was still moving pretty slowly.

“You get that off today?”

He sank gingerly into the recliner across the room.

“Yesterday. It feels like it’s going to fall off.”

“I had one when I got blown up last year, but mine wasn’t as bad. My shoulder took the brunt of it.”

“It blows.”

I was going to tell him that maybe he should avoid situations where he pissed off a bunch of bikers but that seemed kind of hypocritical, so I just asked him if he knew when Jet was going to be back in town. He shook his head and bent down to rub his shinbone.

“No clue. I think he mentioned that he was coming back for a week and then he wanted Ayd to come with him to L.A. for a week after her summer classes were done.”

“I need to find someone to help me keep an eye on the bar I’ve been fixing up, I thought he might know someone.”

Those gold-colored eyes glinted at me from across the room.

“I can do it.”

I tilted my head to look at him. “Really?”

“Yeah, why not? I’m sick of being cooped up in the house. Ayd is on my case about everything under the sun and I could seriously do with some … companionship, if you know what I mean.”

I totally did but I wasn’t sure the Bar was the kind of place he would find it.

“Have you ever bartended before?”

Asa laughed a little. “There isn’t much I haven’t done before. All you have to do is stand behind the bar and talk to people. Trust me, I can talk to anyone.”

I thought it was probably a bit more complicated than all of that, but if he was willing to help me out, why not?

“Cool. It isn’t like some high-end, swanky bar where you’re going to be pulling tail and rolling in money.”

“Rome, I just need to get out of this house before my sister and I kill each other. She’s still working on forgiving me and frankly I’m sick of my own company. It’ll give me something to do, until I figure out where I’m going and what I’m doing from here on out.”

That all rang just a few shades too familiar, so even though I didn’t really know Asa from Adam, I was willing to take the help. Cora wrapped her arms around my neck from behind the couch and put her cheek next to mine.

“What’s on the agenda for the night, big guy?”

She and I and a whole lot less clothing were what was on my agenda, but I wasn’t going to say that in front of Asa. Good thing great minds think alike because it didn’t take much more than a look and the brush of some fingers across the top of her bare leg to get my plans for the night across to her. Seriously, having this girl in my life made everything else I was dealing with seem so much less important. My folks, my future, the bar … all of it took a backseat to the way those two-toned eyes flashed and sparkled at me.

It only took until the next weekend for things to go to hell.

I wasn’t able to spend as much time with Cora because I was at the bar until closing. It might not be a crazy-busy place but I had no clue how much went into keeping the natives from getting restless and tearing the walls down. I was surprised at how much I actually liked it, though. I liked the ebb and flow of the business, the interaction with the customers, the interaction with the liquor reps and the sales guys. I felt like I was actually working for the first time since I got back home. I missed my girl, but she was a champ about it, and I think maybe I needed some breathing room, because the more days that went by that she didn’t have her monthly visitor, the more anxious and keyed up she seemed to be. She must have blabbed to the girls because there was no escaping the narrow-eyed looks I was getting from Ayden every time we bumped into each other, or from Shaw whenever I spent time with her and Rule.

I was also surprised at what a natural Asa was behind the bar. The guy was a born bullshitter, and by the end of the night, from even just a handful of regulars and jaded barflies, he made more in tips than I had ever seen Brite or anyone else take home. He was an all-right bartender, but his gift of gab and plethora of charm made up for it in spades. I even noticed an increase in the younger, female clientele in the few days he had taken up his spot back there. I figured maybe I could talk Brite into keeping him around when he got back.

On Saturday night I left as early as I could and put Asa in charge of shutting the place down. Jet had pulled me aside a few days after mentioning that we were going to be working at the bar together in order to give me a little of Asa’s background. He warned me that essentially he was a good guy, but not to let all that Southern charm fool me. Jet said to watch my back and not to trust Asa as far as I could throw him. I always heeded warnings when they came from people I trusted, but so far Asa had been nothing but an awesome partner in crime and I missed spending time with Cora. Leaving him in charge for a night was a risk I was willing to take.

When I got to the house she was asleep on the couch. Jet and Ayden were gone for the night, so I scooped her up and took her in her room to put her to bed. She woke up when I was pulling her swirly hot-pink sundress off over her head. She blinked those wicked-colored eyes at me and tried to focus.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

She yawned and stretched her arms up over her head. The one with all the brightly inked flowers on it curled around my neck on the way down.

“I’m exhausted.”

I let her tug me down so I could kiss her on her waiting mouth.

“Long day at work?”

She shook her head and ran her fingers over the short hair on the back of my head.

“No. Just sleepy all day. I was going to stay awake and wait up for you but I couldn’t keep my eyes open.”

I kissed her again and she put her hands under the hem of my T-shirt.

“You don’t have to wait up for me. I was just going to put you in bed and crawl in next to you.”

“If we’re going to be in bed together, neither one of us needs to be sleeping.”

Man, this girl was just something else, and it only took about two seconds to get both of us naked and down to business. I fell asleep pretty quickly afterward and as usual she was draped across the top of me from shoulder to hip. In reality it had only been a very short time since we had invaded each other’s life, but something about it just felt like this was the way it was supposed to be.

At least it felt that way until sometime in the early morning.

There was sand in my face and I couldn’t breathe. I was hot, hotter than normal, in all my gear and for some reason I couldn’t see past the red haze covering my eyes. My ears were ringing in my head and from somewhere really far away I could hear voices screaming. I wanted to lift my hand up to wipe my face, to pull my helmet off to see if that would make it easier to breathe.

I couldn’t get my arm to work. I couldn’t get most of my body to cooperate.

I managed to turn my head to the side, just enough so that the blood covering my face trailed down my nose and out of my eyes, barely letting me get a look around.

I wasn’t in the Hummer anymore.

I was on my back staring up at the sky and a cloud of dust and dirt was sticking to all the blood and sweat coating any of my skin that wasn’t covered by my gear.

I didn’t have my gun in my hands anymore, and I couldn’t see any of the other guys who had rolled out on the op with me. There had been six of us in total in the Hummer.

I wanted to call out, wanted to scream because my shoulder was on fire and I wasn’t sure what was going on under my helmet, but the river of blood covering my face showed no sign of slowing down anytime soon and I couldn’t see that great. I just didn’t know if our location was secure. Didn’t know if it was an IED or enemy fire. If any of the other guys had made it out, I wasn’t going to be the one who gave our location away to the insurgents, even if it meant I had to bleed to death on enemy soil.

I don’t know how long I lay there. I went in and out of consciousness more times than I could count, and finally, what felt like days later I opened my eyes to a medic pulling my gear off and trying to move me without breaking more of my body. I think they told me it was an IED. I think they tried to tell me I was going to have to get airlifted home. I’m pretty sure they said brain injury and possible loss of motion in my shoulder, but all I really heard was “sole survivor of the blast.”

It didn’t matter that my ears were ringing. It didn’t matter that I was probably minutes from bleeding out. It didn’t matter that it was war and things like IEDs and dead soldiers were an everyday part of life. I started screaming and screaming and screaming until I felt like everything inside me was empty and hollow. I think they doped me up to get me to calm down and minimize the damage, because when I woke up I was in Germany and they were doing surgery on my arm and trying to sew my face back together.

Everyone thought I was so lucky. I got to go home and recover. I got to live.

Every night after that I woke up either screaming or choking on blood and tears that couldn’t fall.

Bolting upright on the bed, I forgot all about the fact that I was holding on to Cora. I had cold sweat pouring off my arms and chest, and I felt like I was suffocating on blood and sand even though the desert was a lifetime ago. My lungs billowed in and out, my chest heaved up and down, and I knew I had to get away.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and scrambled to find my pants. I could feel Cora shifting on the bed behind me. I flinched away from her hands when she went to lay them on my back. All I could see was crimson and dust. All I could feel was loss and desperation. I didn’t want her anywhere near any of it.

“I have to go.” My voice sounded like I was talking over razor blades and salt.

“What?”

She reached for me again and I lurched off the bed. I pulled my shirt on over my head and refused to look at her. I heard the sheets rustle as she sat up in the bed.

“Rome, what’s going on?”

Her voice was quiet, like she was afraid she was going to spook me. She had no idea about the terrible stuff rolling around like a silent movie behind my eyes. It was so horrific.

I grabbed my phone and keys off her nightstand and made my way to the door. I couldn’t even look at her. I needed to say something, to try to explain, but the crazy, the pain, the memories were too close to the surface and I just couldn’t get to her through them. I was being an asshole, but it was either bail on her or break down in a sobbing pile of goo on her bedroom floor. I couldn’t let her see me like that, didn’t want her to be a part of the stuff inside me that was so ugly and hard to forget.

I didn’t start to breathe normally again until I had the Harley under me and the wind in my face. The nice thing about the bike was that it didn’t matter if some of the emotion working its way to the surface leaked out, the night air just whisked it away. I felt like I was never going to sleep again.