Craving Absolution (9 page)

Farrah

I talked Gram into going to Dragon and Brenna
’s house with us. I knew Callie would be there; she was the type to join the crowd and make friends, but she’d be with Grease and I didn’t want to rely on her to have my back if I needed her. At least with Gram there, I knew there was someone who wouldn’t be distracted. If Gram was nothing else, she was a fierce protector of her kids, and somehow I’d become one of them.

As we pulled in the gate and drove slowly down the gravel driveway in Gram
’s car with Cody leading the way on his bike, I felt myself begin to sweat. I needed to get my shit together before we arrived if I had any hope of leaving again unscathed. I was under no illusion that the people at the barbeque would like me. After all, I was the bastard child of a man whose wife they were really close to; I didn’t belong there.

We climbed out of the car in front of a small house, and I shifted Gram
’s potato salad in my arms. I hadn’t thought to bring anything with me, and I’d been silently freaking the fuck out until Gram pushed it into my hands. I couldn’t take credit for it, but at least I wouldn’t have to walk in empty-handed. Gram must have read my mind because she’d made a big show about how her arthritis was so bad she couldn’t carry it . . . and then insisted on driving.

Cody ushered us up the steps of a small covered front porch,
practically pushing us inside. I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was doing at first, since his movements were jerky as he opened the screen without knocking and quickly ushered Gram inside. My hands had grown a little sweaty, though, so I’d glanced down at the salad bowl to rearrange it in my arms, and saw what he’d been trying to shield us from. A huge bloodstain sat directly to the right of our path, faded a darker brown than the weathered boards surrounding it.

He made a noise in the back of his throat as I stopped short, my stomach dropping.
Oh God
. It was Cody’s blood.

I was frozen, unable to look away from it when he grabbed my chin hard and jerked my face toward his.

“It’s over, Ladybug. Don’t look at it, baby. Don’t think about it.”

I nodded
mutely, my heart thumping in my chest as we followed Gram into the house. I wasn’t sure how I’d get that stain out of my head. I knew he was protecting Brenna when he’d been shot, but I never imagined that I’d face such a stark reminder. Why the hell hadn’t they replaced those boards?

There was no one in the house, so we followed the noise of people into the backyard. It was open, only a couple
of trees between what they used as a yard and the huge field beyond it, and was filled with kid stuff.

I pushed my sunglasses on to hide my reaction
and take in the crowd before me. A small plastic pool sat off to the left, a little girl and boy playing in it with Barbies and plastic dinosaurs floating around them. Another little girl screamed as she ran through a sprinkler just past the pool, her hair a tangled mess of curls. And two more little girls sat in the grass, picking dandelions and throwing them in the air.

Holy shit, these people were like rabbits.

Grease was standing next to the barbeque with two other men, one deeply tanned with long black hair, the other with light brown hair and a slight beer belly. No sign of Slider yet. At the edge of the yard under the trees were three women, one of them Callie, who had Will on her lap.

They all stood up to greet us as we made our way outside, and I felt my hands tremble as they started walking our way.

“Gram and Farrah, that’s Dragon and Tommy at the grill. The pretty redhead is Brenna—” Cody said, his words cut off with a growl from the black-haired man. “Obviously Brenna belongs to Dragon, and the brown-haired sweetheart is Trish, Tommy’s wife.”

I could see why
Cody was accepted so easily into the little group. He utilized a perfect mixture of teasing and charm, and it was a side of him I’d never seen before. He was working the people staring at us like a pro.

Different hellos were called
out as the women reached us, and my hands started to shake as Brenna leaned up to kiss Cody’s cheek, her eyes on me.

“
Hey, Casper. You’ve been ignoring us,” she teased.

My back snapped straight at
her insinuation, and it took all I had to keep a pleasant smile on my face.

“
Had some things to deal with,” he replied, wrapping his arm around my waist.

Just as she was about to say something else, we were interrupted by a small body wrapping itself around my legs.

“Auntie!” Will yelled, his face covered in something red and sticky.

“
Hello, my William.” I’d never been so thankful for the kid’s lack of respect for personal space.

“
Will! Let go of Farrah, you’re gonna get shit all over her pants,” Grease called out from across the yard.

My head snapped up in surprise at his tone, and in my peripheral
vision I saw Callie’s had as well. My stomach burned, resentment building as I looked up to meet Callie’s apologetic eyes. It killed me that he had the right to warn Will away from me as if I were a passing acquaintance. I turned my head slowly toward Grease, and it took everything I had not to tell him to fuck right off as Will silently let go of my legs.

“
You’re okay, Wilfred,” I said calmly, placing one of my hands on his head. “I can wash these pants, buddy.” My eyes never left Grease’s, the sunglasses not shielding any of my feelings as we stared each other down. The yard was silent until he nodded and turned away, and I knew I’d made my point.

“
Nice to meet you, Farrah,” Trish said. She was nervous, her fingers fiddling with her hair as she pushed it behind her ear, and I instantly liked her.

“
You too,” I replied.

Cody
’s hand squeezed my waist before he pulled away, and I watched him walk toward the men, patting backs and giving weird handshakes as he reached the group. The women around me were speaking, but I ignored them. I was uncomfortable as hell, and wished I were anywhere but there when I heard my name.

“
Are you here long, Farrah?” Trish asked.

“
Actually, I just moved up here.”

“
Oh, to be with Casper?” Brenna interjected.

I couldn
’t decipher the emotion in her voice, but something in it rubbed me the wrong way. What the hell was her problem?

“
No, actually to be with Callie,” I joked back, my smug smile in place. I wasn’t going to let her get to me, even if she was studying me like a bug under a microscope.

“
Farrah and I shared an apartment before we moved here,” Callie informed them as we walked back toward their chairs. “I begged her to move with us. Will and I would be lost without her here.”

I smiled at my best friend, grateful that she
’d jumped into the conversation. She was the yin to my yang, the calm to my storm. Sometimes I forgot for a while, taking her friendship for granted, but it was times like these that I remembered why we fit so well.

Grease came up and took the forgotten
potato salad from my arms as we sat down. His face was blank, no emotion in sight, but I knew why he was there.

“
We cool?” he asked softly.

“
This isn’t the place,” I answered. The conversation was flowing around me, but I knew that everyone was listening. I wasn’t about to give them a show, especially since I knew it was stupid to be pissed at him.

“
Still . . . sorry about that, Farrah.” He turned and walked away, giving a chin lift at the guys as they came to sit with us.

The men sat in front of their women on the ground, all of us facing the kids as they played in the water. Pretty soon we were listening to Tommy
tell a story—who was kind of a dumbass but actually super nice—when the little girl who’d been running in the sprinkler ran up and plopped down on Dragon’s lap. The resemblance between the girl and the fierce biker was uncanny.

“
Let’s sing our song, Papa,” she said.

He ignored her for a moment, still caught up in Tommy
’s story, but eventually had to pay attention when she wrapped her hands in his beard and pulled his face down to hers.

“
Let’s sing our song, Papa!” she repeated.

“
Not now, Trix,” he snapped, untangling her fingers from his beard. It sounded harsh, but I couldn’t really blame him for snapping. Those little fingers in his beard must have hurt like hell.

The
child’s lower lip trembled, but she didn’t make a noise as she nodded and leaned her head on his shoulder. He rubbed her back as she sat there, quiet as a mouse. She didn’t look chastised or afraid; she looked embarrassed as she glanced around at the adults surrounding her.

“
Dragon,” Brenna said curtly as she flicked the back of his head.

“
The fuck?”

“
Look at your daughter.”

His chin dropped down to glance at Trix, and his gaze softened as he met her eyes. He looked up at us,
obviously uncomfortable as hell, but he still whispered something to her, making her whole face light up. She leaned back on his knees, grabbing his leather cut in both hands as she started to sing.

“
All my life has been a series of doors in my face, and then suddenly I bump into you!” she belted out, startling most of us.

I had to bite my lips to keep the laughter at bay when she started swaying to the song, but what happened next wasn
’t funny. With an extremely embarrassed but bravado-filled glance at the adults, Dragon began quietly singing back to her.

I didn
’t know what the song was, but it was pretty clear that they’d sung it before, because Dragon knew exactly when to cut in for his part of the duet. We couldn’t really hear Dragon, his voice was too low, but the picture they painted was enough. Dragon and Trix watched each other as they sang, and Brenna sat behind them, a smile on her face and a hand resting on the small swell of her belly.

As
we took in the scene, Cody leaned his head back into my lap and I ran my fingers over his shaved head, relaxing us both. It occurred to me that if the way she looked at her family was any measure of Brenna, maybe I’d judged her wrong.

A while after Trix had scrambled off and the men decided that the burgers were done,
my original opinion of Brenna was proved right as she got up from her chair and stopped in front of me.

“
Hey, Farrah? Can you help me get the rest of the food out of the fridge?” she asked.

I
barely knew her, even less than the other women in the group, but she’d still asked
me
to help her.
Shit.
I was seriously rethinking my decision that she was halfway decent.

I caught Gram
’s eye as I moved past her back into the house. We both knew Brenna was trying to get me alone, and a small shake of Gram’s head indicated she wanted me to stay calm. Easy for her, I thought, as I braced for the confrontation; she wasn’t the one in enemy territory.

“
Here, let me set it all out on the counter and we can just dish up in here,” Brenna said as she leaned into the fridge. “It was nice of you to bring something, you didn’t have to.”

“
I didn’t,” I replied flatly. “Gram made it.”

“
Oh.” She looked surprised to find me standing right behind her, still wearing my sunglasses inside the house.

I moved past, careful
not to brush against her as I grabbed Gram’s bowl and set it on the counter behind her. I wasn’t going to play into her shit or give her an inch. She’d asked me to go inside with her for a reason, and I just wanted her to get to the point.

“
Look, I know you don’t know me, and I almost didn’t say anything, but I just wanted to tell you that Casper is really important to me. To us. I know you’re friends with his sister and her loyalty is probably split, which complicates things . . .”

“
Stop right there,” I ordered coldly. “You don’t get to say anything to me about Cody . . . or Callie, for that matter.”

“
Actually, I think I do. He almost died trying to protect me. We’re close. So I just wanted to warn you that we’re behind him one hundred percent. I’m not sure what game you’re playing, but he showed up at the club last night, and there was obviously something wrong . . .”

My blood ran cold and I slid my hands into my pockets to hide the way they shook. He
r insinuation that he’d been complaining about me was like a bucket of ice water thrown in my face. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. Cody knew how I felt about them, and how uncomfortable I was with the entire situation.

“
You don’t know shit about our relationship. Nothing. You call him
Casper
,
for Christ’s sake.” I worked hard to keep my voice from breaking, but I felt like I’d been blindsided. “Keep your fucking opinions to yourself.
You
got him shot, but I’m the one fucking him. You don’t have shit on me—”