I sat back, digesting the story. “So you’re not sending me away?” I whispered.
Grim frowned. “No, I’m not,” he said firmly.
My entire body relaxed. “Thank you,” I told him quietly.
Grim stood, making his way over to me. “Don’t need to thank me. We got rules here. Hammer spat in the face of those rules, he’ll be dealt with,” he told me tightly. “Gonna ask you to keep this chat between us. Same as that incident.” He nodded his head to the hallway. “Don’t think Hammer’s gonna be too eager to share a tiny bitch almost sterilized him.” He looked like he might almost smile and I think his voice might have held respect. I was shocked.
“Also, I think Hansen might finish the job if he finds out. Don’t want shit going down in my club over pussy, even an Old Lady. Which is what you are now,” he continued.
I nodded by answer.
“Go back to the party, enjoy the time with your old man. Don’t let a drunken idiot’s words get into your head,” he ordered.
I got up and surprised the shit out of myself by kissing Grim on his tanned cheek and then darting from the room before he forgot that he was meant to be a big bad motorcycle club President and not a caring, wise man giving relationship advice.
Luckily, I didn’t see Hammer on the way back to the party and happily went back to Hansen’s arms, letting him kiss me soundly in front of the crowd.
What I didn’t do, was let go of those words. Instead, I let them settle deep down in my gut, tainting the feeling of warmth that had originally been pure and happy.
Two Weeks Later
“You get dressed in the dark today girl? You seem to have forgotten your pants,” my grandmother commented as I met her in the common room of her facility. It was as cheerful as a place like that could be, with dated old sofas and an ancient television playing some random game show. Various older people were scattered around, some looking well dressed and relatively stable, others wearing tattered robes and muttering to themselves. The saddest, I thought, was an old woman in fuzzy slippers staring vacantly out the window. Every time I came here, she was sitting in that same spot, staring into the distance.
“What can I say, Grandma, not all of us can have the timeless sense of style you have,” I replied.
My empire line printed dress stopped above my knees and had bell sleeves. My tan over the knee boots meant only a smallish square of skin was showing. I thought I looked awesome, as did Hansen, who showed me his complete appreciation for my boots only hours before. My grandmother did not obviously agree with a self-confessed style savant and a smokin’ hot biker, who seemed to have taken permanent residence in my mind. And maybe my heart.
She shook her head in disapproval. “You’d think I’d taught you nothing,” she snapped.
Not true. She taught me a life of bitterness and negativity may not wither the looks, but it did land you in an old folks’ home with a dementia diagnosis. Not that I’d say anyone deserved that, but I thought maybe karma might have played a part in this one.
“You still wasting time playing on computers instead of having a real job?” She moved from my outfit to my occupation in a not so smooth segway.
“I’m a graphic designer Grandma, it doesn’t exactly consist of playing on computers,” I explained like I had countless times. It didn’t matter I was actually good at my job and earned a decent amount of money. Money that helped pay for what the insurance didn’t cover for this place.
She waved her hand. “Don’t want to hear excuses as to why you won’t get a real job. I’m assuming this has to do with the company you keep. Bikers,” she spat the word in distaste.
You’d think, with her haughty attitude, my grandmother was an upper-middle-class lady who had never encountered people like the ‘thugs’ I spent my time with. Therefore, giving some reason as why she brought into the stereotype.
That was not the case.
She raised me, after my parents died, in what could loosely be described as the ghetto. Or at least on the edge of the ghetto. Our house was tiny and well-kept with an immaculate garden and a sofa which still had the plastic on, but I regularly walked past drug deals and gangbangers on my way to and from school. My grandmother, who’d been living on a pension and the benefit from the state when she got me, had some sort of selective vision. That stuff did not exist for her. She lived on a high horse, where she had a prime view of all of my shortcomings, of which there were many. She still put a roof over my head, and food in my belly—when she decided I wasn’t ‘pudgy’—and she was my mother’s mother, so she deserved some degree of respect. Despite the fact, she was a raving shrew.
My silence didn’t mean she’d stopped her tirade about how she was going to die early because her granddaughter caused her heart to break from disappointment. I smoothly changed the subject and moved her onto complaining about the staff and the food instead of my life, which she found lacking.
My whole body relaxed when I stepped out of the doors once more.
“Survived another visit I see?” a familiar voice asked.
I looked to my side to see Robert, this time wearing a cable knit jumper that looked seriously expensive, and jeans that looked like he’d bought them faded. Instead of wearing them like that, like bikers I knew.
“Do I have scratch marks on my face? Or are they invisible to the human eye?” I asked seriously.
He laughed and stepped forward. “Looks beautiful to me. Although, I know whatever you endure in there is not outwardly apparent,” he stated lightly, though his eyes held something that told me humor was the only way to deal with the reality of that terrible place.