Craving Constellations (25 page)

“Seriously? Nothing to say?” I asked him, my eyebrows rose in surprise.

He never looked up from what he was doing, but he answered me anyway, “Babe. The man’s a poet.”

“You like James Taylor?”

“Just said I did, didn’t I?”

I felt the smile forming on my face as I found the greatest hits on my iPod and set them on shuffle. I’d found our musical common ground. To other people, it may have seemed insignificant, silly even. But we were building a life, starting from the ground up. I loved learning new things about him, finding how we fit. When he looked up and winked at me, my smile widened until I felt my cheeks cramp.

We made our first forays into the outside world, and it didn’t seem as daunting with Dragon by my side. I knew he wouldn’t let anything happen to us. We grocery shopped and went to dinner, and we even went shopping for summer clothes for Trix. Nothing too short or with any thin shoulder straps made it into our basket. He was very particular about what she wore. It seemed a little over the top to me, but if it was important to him, we could wait until Trix was old enough to complain before we discussed it.

Normal things felt like trips to an amusement park. They were all new and exciting. Even settling into a routine was something that I found myself daydreaming about. This was a life I’d never wanted, and now, suddenly, it felt completely right.

If Dragon would have treated me like spun glass those first few weeks, I thought things would have been much harder to move on from. I would have been aware of our fight every moment of every day, like an albatross hanging around my neck. But after that first day, he didn’t bring it up again other than the small kisses he dropped on my cheek daily, even after the bruises had faded. It was a reminder that he hadn’t forgotten; it was a promise. He went back to being the man I’d dreamed about, gruff and blunt and completely enamored with me. He undressed me with his eyes at the dinner table and grabbed my ass as I left a room, and I loved it. I loved him. I wasn’t sure when it started—long before the day he found out about Draco—but it felt so much more real once he knew everything. All our secrets were out in the open, and I reveled in it.

For once in five years, I wasn’t in control, and I loved it. I hadn’t had a panic attack since I got the papers from Tony, and I felt stronger by the day. I knew Dragon and Pop wouldn’t let anything happen to Trix, and it was a heady feeling to not have to worry about every single little thing. I was just living, playing with my girl during the day and playing with my man at night. It was bliss.

Eventually, life changed into a more normal pattern with Dragon leaving in the mornings and sometimes not getting home until Trix and I were in bed. I didn’t like it. Of course, I didn’t. Most nights, I lay awake, waiting for him to get home, my insecurities screaming at me. But he never gave me any reason not to trust him. He’d come home smelling like the clubhouse—smoke and a mix of whiskey and beer. It didn’t matter if he’d left only hours before, the minute he got home, I wanted him. I simmered all day, my body sore, but with an underlying arousal that never went away. We wanted each other with an urgency that never wavered.

The club had a barbeque every few months, and about three weeks after
the fight
, they had another. It was mid-summer. Everyone was outside in the sunshine, and a band was playing on a platform built every year once the sun came out. It was a tradition to have one of the local bands play, and it’d been the same one since I was a kid. The guys in the band were honorary members of the club although none of them had ever been patched in. They were old and grizzly, and I loved every single one of them. It was like seeing a bunch of uncles for the first time in years, and I proudly showed Trix off while she stood shyly, trying to hide behind my legs.

It was fun to see Dragon in his element, drinking beer with the boys and giving the recruits a hard time. I’d never had the chance to see him interact with the boys before, but I wasn’t surprised by the respect he seemed to have inside the club. It gave me a feeling of family that I hadn’t had in a long time.

I was sitting on Dragon’s knee, my arms wrapped around his shoulders, while he talked to Grease when the band started its first set. I was familiar with all of the songs they sang. Not only were they covers, but they hadn’t changed much over the years. There were newer versions of some of the songs, but for the most part, they stuck to what they considered the classics. It wasn’t until they paused after “Crazy Train” and the lead singer Jimmy started speaking that I paid any attention to what they were doing.

“Now, we’ve been missing someone for five looooooong years!” Jimmy exaggerated into the microphone, and my forehead dropped as I groaned into Dragon’s shoulder. “Brenna, my darlin’, I need you! Make an old man happy!”

All of the old club members hooted and hollered while the newest looked at me in confusion, including Dragon. There was no way I was getting out of it, so I just gave Dragon a quick kiss and stood up.

“I’ll be right back. If they don’t let me go, please come save me.”

The yells got louder the closer I got to the stage, and the minute Jimmy grabbed my hand and pulled me up to stand with him, the air was filled with cheers. I leaned into his microphone and smiled ruefully.

“I haven’t done this in five years. Be kind!”

The whole crowd laughed, and a piercing whistle came from the picnic table where Dragon and Grease were sitting. When I looked over, Grease had a huge smile on his face, and Dragon was watching me closely. I looked around for Trix in the crowd of kids, and I found her standing still in the midst of the chaos, watching me. I gave her a wink, and she smiled huge before I walked to the back of the stage where Harry was sitting.

“You ready to go have a beer, old man?” I asked him with a grin.

My hands were sweating in nervousness, and I wiped them on my thighs before I sat down behind his drum kit.

When I was about six, I wanted to join dance class. I was in heaven when Pop let me go. Vera was my chauffeur, driving me to and from class twice a week for two weeks, while Pop was on a run. When he got back, I was so excited to show him what I’d learned that I’d dragged him to class. I’d had no idea the drama it would cause. I had no reason to think that anyone would have a problem with my pop. I didn’t notice the dirty looks the country club mamas gave him as he sat on the edge of the floor, watching me twirl and prance. I’d been completely focused on him and the proud look on his face. I’d felt like I was walking on the clouds.

The next week, it was back to Vera driving me to and from class, but everything else was different. The other children didn’t talk to me, and the dance teacher spoke to me like I was a pesky fly she couldn’t get rid of. I was devastated but determined, and this went on for three more weeks before Pop had had enough and pulled me out.

I was heartbroken, but Pop thought if I liked dance, then maybe music would be a good outlet for me. Instead of twice a week lessons at the local dance studio, Vera drove me over to Jimmy’s garage where the band practiced. At first, I was pissed. I wanted to be a pretty ballerina. I didn’t want to try and work my fingers around the frets on a guitar neck. It wasn’t long before the boys knew guitar wasn’t going to be the instrument for me. I picked up the rudimentary chords pretty quickly, but I was bored. Wayne, the bass player, was the only member who was classically trained, but he said he’d be damned if he was going to buy me a fucking flute or clarinet. A few weeks went by where they tried to get me interested in the piano, but they eventually gave that up, too. It wasn’t until I stepped behind Harry’s drum kit that I found my place.

I was too small to sit, so I stood behind it as I beat on the drums the first time. Only my eyes and the top of my head showed over the set of toms, but it was love at first beat. It turned out that I had an affinity for percussion. I sat quietly while Harry explained what sound each piece made, and from then on, I was hooked. I was by no means some child prodigy, but I was good, really good. I played with them on Tuesdays and Thursdays for ten years. My skills improved rapidly, but steadily, over the years until one day I was as good as Harry. My recitals were club barbeques, and I had a captive audience of family every time I climbed on stage.

I probably could have applied for a music scholarship when I went to college. Wayne had taught me to read music, and I could play anything he put in front of me, but I had been reluctant to turn something I loved to do into something I had to do. I’d been afraid it would take the magic away. I’d played at random barbeques I went to during college, but when I left the club, I never played again.

It had been over five years since I played, and my fingers felt stiff and awkward at first, but within the first few beats of “Paradise City,” it was like I was reconnecting with an old friend. I sat behind the kit, the world around me fading away, as I played song after song with the men who’d taught me more about music than most people learn in their entire lifetime. I pounded my frustration and pain of the last five years into the drums, and by the time I was finished, my hair was sticking to my neck and the sides of my face with sweat.

I stood up at the end of the set and met Pop’s eyes across the yard. The things I’d done, the pain I’d put him through, the frustration and the anger—none of that mattered. He still watched me with the same proud smile on his face that I’d seen when I was six years old, twirling around that dance studio. Those mamas, the ones who’d acted like I was trash? They had no idea the family I’d had growing up. They wouldn’t understand the support and love that surrounded me every day of my life. Pop may not have been the best man. He was the vice president of a motorcycle club, a killer, and a thief, but when he looked at me, all I saw was the man who’d loved me unconditionally from birth. Nothing would ever change him in my eyes.

It wouldn’t be until a week later when I would see the part of my father that I’d been sheltered from, the man who had left Ireland under a cloud of suspicion and was welcomed into the club with open arms for a reason that only the old president had known.

When I got done with my fifteen minutes of fame that turned into an hour of beating Harry’s drums with everything in me, Dragon was waiting. He stood at the edge of the stage, and my feet didn’t touch the grass before he hoisted my legs around his waist, and he was kissing me hard. Our breath was ragged when he lifted his head to the catcalls and whistles filling the air around us. The smile on his face was wide and bright, crinkling the corners of his eyes, and his dimple was just barely visible underneath his close-cropped beard.

“That was one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen. Why didn’t you tell me you could do that?” he asked while kneading the cheeks of my ass with his hands.

I just shrugged my shoulders. “It’s not a big deal. I’ve been playing since I was six.”

“No wonder you and Trix dance like you do. You’re fucking drumming with your feet!” He laughed in my face.

“What do you mean?” I asked him, confused.

“When I watched you guys dancing in the kitchen, your feet were fuckin’ pounding the floor with the beat of the music!”

My face got hot.

“You didn’t know you did that?” He laughed again at my embarrassment.

“Ah, no. I don’t do it on purpose. I’ve never noticed,” I told him.

“Well, it’s cute as fuck, and Trix does it, too. That girl can keep a beat like no kid I’ve ever seen,” he replied with a proud smile on his face.

He started walking through the crowd where shouts of vulgar suggestions were made to our retreating backs, but Dragon never put me down. When we made our way around the corner, he pressed me up against the wall of the building and kissed me again, his hands roaming my body.

“You’re gonna keep a beat for me tonight, yeah?” he whispered in my ear, biting the lobe gently.

I wasn’t sure exactly what he was talking about, but it didn’t matter. Anything he asked of me in that tone of voice, I’d give him.

We walked home after the sky had grown dark, and Trix had finally fallen asleep, sticky and covered in dirt, sitting on Dragon’s lap. Neither of us were drunk, but we were feeling the effects of the whiskey and beer we’d drunk. I hadn’t had more than a glass of wine since the night Trix was conceived, and I was giddy with it.

When we got into the house, Dragon turned to me, “Get undressed, Brenna. Gonna put Trix in bed. Want you naked when I get to you.”

Then, he walked quietly down the hallway toward Trix’s room as I locked up the house. I raced into the room, flinging clothes off, with a desperation that bordered on ridiculousness. When I was finally naked, I lay down on the bed and waited as I heard him walk toward the front of the house. He came back, carrying a kitchen chair and my iPod dock, causing me to sit up in surprise.