Craving Constellations (26 page)

“What are you doing?” I asked, my face creased in confusion.

He didn’t answer me, but he went around the side of the bed and plugged in the dock. Then, he set the chair at the end of the bed and locked the door before sitting down and grabbing the neck of his shirt to drag it off.

“Only set up two songs, but I figure I won’t make it much longer than that.” He looked at me, his nostrils flaring, and he finally told me what was going on. “Get down here and dance for me, Brenna.”

“Uh, dance for you?” I asked nervously.

I wasn’t a stripper. I didn’t know any sexy dance moves. I could just envision myself trying to be sexy and ending up looking like the kid from Napoleon Dynamite.

“Baby, you’ll do fine,” he told me, correctly interpreting the look on my face. “Come ’ere.”

I climbed off the bed and went to stand in front of him as the beginning strains of Awolnation’s “Sail” filled the room. I felt my breathing grow heavy as I remembered the song’s thumping rhythm. He grabbed my waist gently and pulled me so that my thighs were straddling his.

“Not much to it, baby. I want a lap dance. All you need to do is move with the beat and use your imagination. You know what I like.”

I stood there awkwardly until he pulled me down, grinding his jean-clad hips into my bare ones.

“Come on, baby. Don’t you wanna show off for your man?” he asked me on a thrust. “Give it to me.”

It didn’t take long for the beat of the music to release my inhibitions. I was using my hips with the rhythm of the song, his hands roaming my body, touching anything he could reach. I ran my fingers through his hair and then dragged my nails lightly down his chest, bending my head down once to take a nipple into my mouth. He made a sound low in his throat and dragged my head up to meet his, so he could kiss me deep, but my hips never lost rhythm. The kiss was enough to have him unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans as I writhed above him.

When the song transitioned from “Sail” to “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons, he was already inside me. I moved with the beat of the music, my eyes never leaving his, as I ran my hands over my breasts and up into my hair. When my hands rose above my head and my back bowed, I thought he was going to have a heart attack. We didn’t last long after that.

We lay in the bed hours later, neither of us ready for sleep.

“We’ll get this shit taken care of, Brenna. Don’t worry. If I’m not here, Poet and Vera will help you take care of things. Our lawyer’s a douche, but he knows what the fuck he’s doing,” he told me quietly.

“What!” I raised myself up on my elbow, alarmed. “Why wouldn’t you be here?”

“You know how Slider is. He’s not gonna be easy on me just ’cause we got family shit. Got runs to make…can’t be sittin’ at home forever,” he told me like it was no big deal.

“Well, maybe he’ll be cool. He knows all of the shit that’s going on. Come on, I’m his goddaughter. He’s not going to send my man out when I need him here,” I told him logically.

He grunted. “Not your plaything, Brenna. I’m a brother. I do my job, and I’m good at it. I’m not takin’ favors from the boss because I’m fuckin’ his goddaughter.”

“That’s a shitty thing to say,” I groused.

“True, ain’t it? Just fucked you twice in the last two hours.” He sounded annoyed.

“You could have said you were ‘with me’ or something. You don’t have to talk like I’m a piece of ass.” I was getting more annoyed by the minute.

“Brenna, I’m gonna say whatever the fuck I want. Not sugarcoating shit, so you don’t get your panties in a twist. I ever treat you like a piece of ass?”

“No,” I grumbled.

“Then, don’t put words into my mouth.” He shook his head in frustration. “How the fuck did we even get on this conversation? You’re fuckin’ crazy, you know that?”

He sounded baffled, and I giggled into his chest. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me on top of him, so my arms were crossed, resting on his chest, with my chin leaning on my forearms, our entire bodies aligned to our toes.

“You do what I say,” he ordered me gently. “If I’m not here, you lean on your pop and Vera. We’ll get it taken care of. You gotta trust me, baby.”

I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew he needed me to answer him, so I did. “All right, honey. I’ll trust you and lean on Pop and Vera if you’re not here.”

“That’s good. I’m always gonna take care of you,” he whispered, running his fingers down the side of my face, and then rolling us, so we were lying side by side.

He searched my face for a minute, and the look in his eyes made me instantly apprehensive.

“Is everything okay?” I asked him anxiously, dreading his answer.

“Everything’s fine. Nothin’ to worry about. Gonna be smooth sailing from here,” he assured me with a slow kiss on my lips.

Then, he tightened his arms around me and tilted his head above mine, closing his eyes as if to sleep. I lay there in the dark, safe and warm in our little nest, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was looming on the horizon. Dragon had assured me that everything was fine, but something was off. He wouldn’t look me in the eyes as he said it.

Life evolved into a pretty familiar pattern. Dragon spent most of his time away from the house, but knowing he was in town was enough to keep me from completely panicking about our conversation after the barbeque. In the days after the party, I felt like the hairs on my neck stood up constantly in reaction to a force that I couldn’t see. I knew something was coming, but I couldn’t tell from what direction it would come.

Tony had been quiet, and we learned four days after the barbeque that our custody hearing had been pushed back in light of recent events. Dragon’s paternity suit had done its job, and I was almost giddy with relief that this would all be over soon. I no longer received any calls from Tony. Dragon had taken care of that weeks ago with the new number he’d set up for me. But I’d still had to deal with Tony’s lawyer calling the club and leaving messages constantly, always promising the same thing. If I went back, Tony would be willing to go to couple’s counseling, and he would drop the custody suit immediately. The thought made me shudder. The attorney for the club finally took over those calls, too, telling both the attorney and Tony that we weren’t interested.

Trix had made friends with some of the club kids, giving us more to do during the day, as old ladies and their children stopped by to play. Casper still spent time watching out for us when Dragon wasn’t home. Dragon didn’t feel comfortable leaving us alone until the dust had settled on the custody battle, but Trix and I didn’t mind. Casper was becoming the brother I’d never had; he was a part of our little family, and we loved having him around. It was everything I’d been looking for when I left the club. It was a community where Trix and I felt comfortable, where we could have play dates, and I could chat with other mothers without worrying that I would let something slip that would give a hint to our home life.

It was amazing to me, the difference in my perspective from a child of the club to an old lady of one of the members. I had been so sure that the life I’d wanted was outside the gates of the club where I didn’t have to worry about the stares of outsiders. I had taken for granted the community I’d grown up in. Like an extended family, there was always someone to listen or help out. I’d been so anxious to leave that I hadn’t realized what I was leaving. I was sure that there was a sense of community on the outside, that there were people living the straight and narrow who had the connections I’d wanted, but I’d never found them. The club was where I was comfortable. These were the people I trusted, and I was finally finding my place.

While lying in the grass one day with Trix asleep next to me, I realized that the traits I so dreaded in a man from the club weren’t present in Dragon. He didn’t sleep around. I didn’t always know where he was, but I was learning that I didn’t need to know. He had business that I wasn’t a part of, and I was perfectly fine with that. He didn’t party long into the night and come home smelling like club whores the way I’d envisioned in my nightmares. I knew he was doing things that could get him put away for a long time, but I trusted him to be as careful as he could. He’d never jeopardize our little family if he could help it. I figured it was a lot like a military wife must feel when her husband was out doing things that she knew put him in danger. Thinking about the dangers didn’t do anything except make her miserable. We had to make the best of a shitty situation. It made them who they were. Of course, military wives had husbands on the right side of the law…but who was I to quibble over semantics?

When I realized that this was where we were supposed to be, I felt a peace that I’d never felt before. Everything became simpler. The obsessive compulsive cleaning jags stopped almost completely, and dishes in the sink became just dishes in the sink, not a mountain I had to climb at the first possible instant. I was feeling comfortable in my skin again, free to be myself, the self I’d lost so long ago.

Dragon noticed the change in me, and it changed the way he acted toward me in simple ways. He pushed me. He teased me, knowing I wouldn’t burst into tears at some perceived slight. We fought. He didn’t hold back when he was pissed, and for once, I didn’t either. We never crossed any lines, emotional or physical, but we fought, balls-to-the-wall arguments, which usually turned into the best sex we’d ever had.

Dragon became messier, and it was then I knew that he’d been on his best behavior before. He left shit all over the house that I’d find throughout the day—socks by the couch, a grease rag hanging on the back of a kitchen chair. He wasn’t tiptoeing around the house anymore; he was leaving his mark, mostly in the form of dirty laundry. All of his furniture was still in the apartment he’d shared with Kendra, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want any of that stuff in my house. The thought of sitting on a couch they’d had sex on made my stomach turn. So, we made a home with the hand-me-downs and castoffs we’d accumulated, and I loved it.

Life was good.

Until it wasn’t.

Dragon left early in the morning on the Friday after the barbeque. It wasn’t normal for him to leave before the sun came up, but it wasn’t abnormal either. I stayed in bed with Trix, snuggling up close next to her, her breath hot on the side of my neck. These were some of my favorite mornings, the ones where I was just barely awake as Dragon kissed me slow and deep before he said good-bye. It left me in a half-dreamlike state where everything felt cozy and warm. I relished the feeling of kissing my man good-bye as I cuddled our baby close. I fell back asleep not long after I heard Casper pull up, the roar of Dragon’s retreating bike fading in my ears.

My phone woke both Trix and me up at eight that morning, making me groan in frustration, as she jumped out of bed to grab it.

“Hi, Papa!” she answered and then paused for a moment. “Nope, we were sleepin’. Mama’s still layin’ in bed. She looks mad!” She giggled for a minute and then handed the phone to me.

I’d noticed that she started using Dragon’s mannerisms the week before, dropping her Gs and gesturing with her hands as she spoke. She’d never before been so animated.

“Hey, babe,” I mumbled into the phone as I watched Trix bounce out of the bedroom.

“Hey, baby. Sorry I woke you up.” I could hear the laughter in his voice.

“It’s not funny! Someone kept me up late last night.”

“Yeah, and you loved it,” he answered me. “Got the results back this morning.”

I sat straight up in bed, his news waking me up instantly. “What does that mean? I mean, I know what it means, but what do we do now?”

“Well, we do nothin’. We wait to hear from the lawyers. But I’d feel better if you and Trix got up and got dressed,” he informed me, sounding distracted.

“What’s going on? Why do we need to get dressed?” I asked, climbing out of bed to follow his directions even though I didn’t understand why I was doing it.

“The douche just got papers in black and white that say Trix isn’t his to fuck with. He knew it, but now, the courts know it. Man’s like a cornered animal now, yeah? I’d feel better if you two were awake and dressed. That’s all I’m sayin’.” The tone of his voice never changed, but it was almost as if I could feel the tightness of his body from across the phone.

“All right. I’m getting dressed now. I’ll go help Trix in a minute. Are you at the clubhouse? Should we come over there?” I asked, beginning to feel a sense of urgency that I didn’t understand but didn’t fight.