Feeling defeated, I sit down beside her and raise my hands. “What do you want, Crazy?”
“Do you love me?” she asks. I go to stand up when she smacks me with the hand holding the gun. I don’t care how good she is with a gun, a woman waving around a firearm is never a good thing. My heart skips several beats.
“You know I do,” I say. Just like Pop, this woman has me fucking whipped. No matter how painful it is to talk about this, I try to give her the respect she’s due for every night she stayed up late to help me with my homework and for every dinner she fixed up, and every time she’s the mother my own didn’t want to be.
“So, why’s it so fucking hard to say it to Cub?” she asks. I don’t answer, because whether she’s my mother or not, fuck her. “You think you don’t love her, but you do. You’re just too fucking stupid to see it. Now grow a fucking pair and stop hurting her.”
“I’m going to hurt her just by being with her,” I mutter. Giving her a brutal glare, I tap my foot on the ground beneath me. “I’m an asshole, and she’s too fucking stupid to let herself see it.”
“One of you is fucking stupid, Punk, but it ain’t her. She picked you, and you picked her. Let yourself enjoy it. You father, the club, they’ll get over it.”
“Whatever,” I mutter. “You’re just nuts.”
“You want to know what love is? Love is that thing that happens when you least expect it. Love isn’t about changing who you are, it’s about being a better version of yourself. I see you with her, and it’s like looking at your father twenty years ago. Cub makes you a better person. I didn’t like it at first, but I see it now. She’s good for you.”
Leaning forward, I shove my head into my hands and yank at my hair. I don’t want to listen to this, but I don’t know how much more fight I have left in me. It’s like she’s been yanking away at every defense, at every hardened piece of me, fighting her way into a place I long ago thought dead. Relentless, determined, and even stupidly, she made me feel. I scrunch up my eyes and jam the balls of my hands into my sockets, trading one pain for another.
Loud shots ring out at the back of the property from behind the trees. In an instant, Ma and I are both standing, guns at the ready. My brothers rush toward the shots, keeping their guns up, trained on the tree line. I trail behind them, alert as ever. Ma rushes to the fuse box beside the front door and flips the switch just below it, basking the field in the flood lights. Whoever’s back there won’t get far with so much light on them.
I follow the sound, realizing only too late where I’m supposed to be. All of the fucking feelings bring thrown around screwed with my head. In a split second, I turn around as high-pitched screams ring out from the house. Lowering my gun, I take off in a sprint. Ma’s nowhere to be found. More shots ring out, this time from the front of the house. My heart drops. Cub.
Out of nowhere, PJ shows up, running beside me. She pants, sprinting through the tall grass. She’s so focused and trained—the perfect dog for protection. I was her pack leader once, but now it’s Cub. As we sprint toward the house, I’m not sure who’s more determined to get to Cub—me or PJ.
Leaping onto the deck, we rush into the house, turn right and run through the kitchen then down the hall and into Cub’s room. The framed pictures on the wall have either fallen off or are in disarray. The bedspread is half off the bed, and all of Cub’s valuables are tossed on the floor. A sick feeling washes over me as I eye the open sliding glass door. PJ whimpers from the corner, but I ignore it and rush out the door.
The flood lights are on, basking the front yard in a harsh light. A figure lies in the grass, coughing. It’s a deep cough. I race across the deck and into the grass. Taking long strides, I reach the figure in no time. Sliding down beside the figure, I breathe a sick sigh of relief that it’s not Cub.