Resonance (Marauders #4) (16 page)

“That’s great,” Mom said. “Are you hungry, honey?”

“No. I’m fine, I’ll just have some coffee.”

Felix kept asking questions, and I answered them as well as I could. He was mostly curious who else had been there, and he seemed proud he knew who they were. He also asked if he could go see the clubhouse, and I told him to ask Tommy. I wouldn’t have thought it was a place for kids, but Tommy had said kids were there often during the day to hang out with each other and their ‘uncles.’ I figured Felix would be safe if he was with Tommy, and that the others knew how to behave around kids. It didn’t seem likely that Brick would accept anyone misbehaving around his grandkids.

“Was Bucket there?” Felix asked.

“No, he wasn’t.”

“His dad has horses.”

“Adam’s? Bucket has horses?”

“No. Bucket’s daddy. He’s got loads of horses.”

That didn’t make much sense, but Felix had already moved on to the next subject. I looked at Dad.

“Bucket’s dad owns a ranch,” he explained in a low voice. “Cattle, I think. He talked about cows, but they probably have horses to—”

He didn’t get to finish.

“They have horses. Like cowboys,” Felix exclaimed. “And he’s been rodeoing.”

“Been on the rodeo, honey,” Mom said.

“I think rodeoing is a word,” Dad pointed out. I had no idea either way, and didn’t think it was worth the discussion, so I turned to Felix.

“I understand, little guy. When did he tell you that?”

“At the hospital,” Felix answered. “Think I could go riding sometime?”

“Maybe. We’ll have to ask him.”

For some reason, it was hard for me to imagine the son of a ranch owner in a biker club.

Later that day, Felix came with his phone to show me a picture Tommy had sent to him. It was the two of us together, standing next to each other. I was holding a cue and Tommy had his arm around my waist. He was looking into the camera, but I was looking at him.

“You have your hair down,” Felix said while looking at the picture. “You look really pretty when you have that.”

“Thank you, honey. That’s a really nice picture.”

“Maybe I can put it in a frame. Your smile is nice. It’s like when you’re smiling at me.”

It was surprising how observant kids were without always understanding what they were seeing. I was smiling on the picture, the same way I smiled when I looked at Felix.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Do You Yield?

~oOo~

“JESUS, THIS IS SO tacky,” I groaned when I felt Tommy’s hands on my ass. He lifted me up, and I circled his hips with my legs. “It’s like being sixteen again.”

“I knew it!” he chuckled. “That motherfucker fucked you.”

He was talking about Andrew Tucker, my boyfriend when I was sixteen. I’d told Zach and Tommy that we weren’t having sex, and they had a talk with him, too. Mainly since he was actually their friend, and he’d asked me out without getting their ‘permission.’ They’d threatened him, and I’d described in detail what I would do to Zach’s bike if they didn’t back the fuck off. Andrew had been my boyfriend for over six months, I’d been very much in love with him, and he was the first guy I’d had sex with. Something Zach and Tommy had suspected, but to save Andrew’s dick, I’d maintained for years that we’d never ‘done it.’ I didn’t think the guy deserved a beating even after he’d broken up with me. Or, I did think he deserved it, but I wanted to give him the beating myself. Then I met the next guy and a few years later most of my thoughts about Andrew were positive. He’d been a great guy, and he’d treated me really well.

But yes, we’d had sex, every chance we got, which when you’re sixteen meant a lot of not so very classy places. Like the restroom in a park. Which was where Tommy was getting ready to fuck me.

“Oh, yeah,” I said with a big smile. “He nailed me every chance he got.”

“Damn!” Tommy laughed and kissed me. “I was so sure, but Zach said you wouldn’t lie to him about it.”

“Totally would,” I admitted. “Can we stop talking now?”

“Yeah.” Tommy had managed to get a condom out of his pocket, and he handed it to me. “Open it.”

I did, and then rolled it on him. I grabbed a few extra feels because I loved feeling his big dick in my hands.

“I guess this is sort of exercise,” I groaned. With a smile, he pressed inside of me. “Fuck.”

“Next time, don’t wear short shorts. I can’t fucking jog with a rock hard dick.”

It had been a month, and since I couldn’t spend the night at the clubhouse or his apartment very often, and I still didn’t want him to spend the night at Mom and Dad’s house, we’d ended up in similar situations an embarrassing number of times. It really was like being sixteen again, but instead of hiding it from our parents, we were hiding it from our kid. So far, it seemed to be working. Felix was just glad that we were spending more time with him together. My main concern was how long it would take before Mom, Dad, or both of them started to butt in.

I didn’t mind the quickies we took all over Phoenix and Greenville, though, they were good, but I also wanted to spend more nights with him. We’d decided to wait until after the surgery. I had a hard time thinking about anything beyond that.

“Fucking hell, Billie,” Tommy groaned when he let me back down on the floor. We were both panting, and once again my throat was sore from trying to hold back screams. He leaned against the sink. “Am I supposed to jog now? I don’t think I can.”

I pulled up the short shorts that had put us in the situation, then I leaned closer to him.

“Do you yield?”

He glared at me. “No fucking way.”

*

Two days later, we were at the hospital, and the news was good—sort of. All the tests were done, and they didn’t think Felix would be in a better condition than he was at the moment. Rather the opposite: he was getting worse, so it was best if the surgery was done as soon as possible.

I looked at Tommy. We hadn’t talked much about the transplant, but I knew he’d done all the tests, and that he’d been cleared. I also knew that he’d stayed away from drinking, smokes, and just generally everything that could be bad, since he found out about Felix’s existence. He hadn’t hesitated at all, and I assumed he’d gotten all the information the doctors thought he needed.

I’d obviously done a lot of research on kidney transplants. Like how they’d pump his abdomen full of CO2, and it would be in his body for up to two weeks, and for some reason no one had been able to explain to me, that would mean pain in his shoulder area. I’d actually thought it was a joke, but it wasn’t.

Even if it all went well, it could take up to twelve weeks until Tommy was back to normal. I didn’t think that would be the case for him, given his physical health, but it was still a risk. It was a lot more painful than most had expected before donating. The first one or two days, Tommy would be hooked up to a morphine pump. I knew he wasn’t a stranger to pain, but still…

Then there were the risks with only having one kidney, which, given his lifestyle, might be more of a risk than if it had been me giving a kidney to Felix.

There was no doubt in my mind that Tommy knew all these things, but he’d never mentioned any of them as an issue. Nothing seemed to be any issue to him, and Tommy looked at the doctor.

“When?”

“We’re going to schedule it for next Tuesday. As long as you and Felix stay healthy until then, we’ll go through with it.”

We stayed for a long time; everyone had a lot of questions, and Felix the most of them. Good questions, not just what would get better, but also what could happen later. My heart ached with pride and love when he asked about what it would be like for Tommy, if he’d be in pain, and he wasn’t satisfied with the comment from Tommy that he shouldn’t worry about it. When we left about an hour later, Felix made us stop in the hallway.

“Daddy, how much pain is it for you?” he asked.

Tommy crouched down in front of Felix. With a grip on his neckline, he pulled the t-shirt to the side to show Felix the scars he had on his shoulder. I knew they continued down the front almost to his nipple, and quite far down his shoulder blade on his back, too.

“See this?” he said.

“Yes,” Felix said with big eyes.

“I got that when I tried to save your uncle’s life, and my leg looks about the same. Hurt like hell; it still hurts sometimes. So if I did that to save my friend, think I’d do anything less to save my kid?” He pulled Felix into a hug. “Don’t worry about me, Champ. I’ll be fine. You just focus on yourself.”

I quickly dried my eyes and tried to control my breathing when Felix put his arms around Tommy and hid his face against his neck.

“You scared?” Tommy asked, but Felix shook his head. “It’s okay if you are, you know. Everyone is scared sometimes. Scared keeps us alive. Remember what the Wizard says to the Lion?”

Felix nodded against Tommy’s neck, and I knew what he meant, too. We’d read
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
several times by then, and just as Mom and Dad had done with us when we were kids, Tommy and I had emphasized a few things in the book, and one of them was what the Wizard says to the lion. All of us knew that sentence by heart, and it was Dad’s favorite line in the book. ‘There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. True courage is facing danger when you’re afraid.’

Felix whispered something, but I couldn’t hear what, and it was getting increasingly hard to not just bawl my eyes out.

“Last time I was scared?” Tommy repeated in a slightly broken voice while looking at me. “Honestly, kiddo, I’m pretty fucking scared right now. But not because it might hurt.”

Tommy sat down on the floor with Felix on his lap. They were still hugging, and he reached out for me.

“Think we need a family hug. Come on, mama bear,” he said, and I sat down next to him.

After a while, Felix climbed over to my lap, and Tommy was holding us both. That was when that anger of the unfairness hit me. It did that sometimes. I got angry about how fucking unfair it was that Felix didn’t really get a chance to be a kid. That he was so little and had experienced so much pain already.

“Are you scared sometimes, Mom?” he asked.

“Most of the time,” I admitted. “Like Daddy said, sometimes that’s what keeps us alive or keeps us fighting. Wanna tell me what you’re scared of now?”

He was mumbling against my neck. “That it doesn’t work, or that it’ll hurt a lot.”

“It’ll work,” I said, probably trying to convince myself as much as him. “And it’ll hurt, too, but remember what we’ve said about that?”

“That it’ll hurt a lot for a while, and then the hurting will stop. I’ll feel almost as other kids do.”

“Yeah. No more pain than other kids.”

That’s when Felix sat up and dried his eyes.

“Okay,” he said. He reached up and dried my cheeks, too. “I’ll be brave.”

“You’re always brave, and being scared doesn’t make you any less brave. Being scared and still keeping on fighting, that’s real bravery. You know that,” I smiled and gave him a kiss. “Have I told you how proud I am of you?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Many times.”

Tommy leaned over and gave Felix’s temple a kiss. “You’ll fight this, Champ, and you’ll have me and your mom in your corners, fighting with you. We’ll beat it.”

“Yes,” Felix said with a determined nod.

We stood up again, and Felix took our hands and we started walking through the hallway again. Mom and Dad were waiting for us, and when Felix saw them, he let go of us and ran ahead.

I flagged for Dad’s attention. When he nodded at me, I clenched one hand into a fist and slammed it a few times quickly into my other palm, and then held up two fingers. Dad nodded.

“Did you just do the ‘out of action’ signal to your dad?” Tommy asked.

“I use it all the time for when I need a moment,” I said, and pulled him around the corner, out of sight from Felix. “Sort of, out of action as parent.”

“Clever,” Tommy smiled when I pushed him against the wall. “What’s this?”

“I need to tell you that I love you, and that…”

“That?”

“More than anything, I wish that I’d contacted you immediately. You’re amazing with him, and with me, and I don’t deserve—”

He interrupted me by kissing me, and I leaned closer to push him back against the wall. It was quickly getting out of hand, so I took a step back.

“Don’t think we need to do a rerun of the last time we were in bathroom together at this hospital,” I mumbled while trying to gain control of my body.

“If you’d help up five fingers instead of two, we would have.” He grabbed me and pulled me back against his chest. “I’m sorry, too.”

“For what?”

“I know you, and I knew you back then, too. If I’d thought about it I would’ve known… that you were as messed up as me. I shouldn’t have let you push me away.”

“I’m pretty stubborn, and there’s just no fucking way I’ll let you take any of the blame.”

“I’m not really, I just wanted to say it. But I understand why you did it, and I’m not angry about it, so please… Let’s leave it behind. You’ve raised a great kid. And I love you.”

“Yeah, I guess that helps,” I said.

“Nothing else you wanna ask?”

I knew what he was after, and I would’ve liked to ask it. If he was sure about it, if he really would donate his kidney, but if I asked, he’d get pissed.

“No. Or... yes. Is it true that Bucket grew up on a cattle ranch?”

“Yeah, he did,” Tommy laughed. “Think our two minutes out of action are over.”

“I think so. I love you, Tommy.”

~oOo~

TOMMY HAD LEFT THE Jensens at their house, and he continued past the clubhouse too, since Brick had said he’d be waiting for him at home. When he got off his bike in front of the house, he saw Mac and Dawg’s trucks along with Bear’s bike outside.

Mel, Vi, and Eliza were in the kitchen.

“Is Felix here?” Travis yelled from the top of the stairs.

“No, not today.”

“Think I can visit him this weekend?”

“I’ll talk to your dad,” Tommy answered. He had no idea what kind of mood Felix would be in.

“Have you ever used a rocket launcher?” Eliza asked, and the questioning and… kids were starting to get to him.

“Um… yeah. Why?”

Tommy had always been slightly freaked out by Eliza. Or not so much by her, but by the fact that she’d had something like a crush on him for a while, and he’d seriously feared for his health. He’d avoided her just to make sure that Brick never for a second thought it was something Tommy would take advantage of.

“It’s for a play. You’ve used a lot of big weapons and stuff.”

“Yeah.”

“Think we could interview you about it?”

“Like all of you in a group? Sure.” That was a lot better than just her. “I need to talk to your dad.”

“On the deck.”

“Thanks,” he said and went outside. Brick, Bear, and Dawg were all out there, but he didn’t see Mac. He guessed Vi might’ve come alone. “Your daughter wants to interview me about rocket launchers.”

“Yeah, I told her to talk to you,” Brick said.

“Should I be worrying about a feminist revolution?” Bear asked.

Eliza was a raging, borderline crazy, feminist, who didn’t look like one. She was blonde, with sort of big tits (even if that was something Tommy really avoided thinking about) lots of curves like her mom (something else he avoided thinking about), and pretty as a picture. Bear had on more than one occasion called her and her theater group, The Green Kittens, for ‘the lipstick feminist mafia,’ something they had picked up and seemed to like.