Page 3 of Between Brothers

Chapter 1

Blue

Nineteen months later

“Quittin’ time, boys!” the foreman called and I shot a look down the road we were working on to Cell. He gave me a chin lift and I nodded. I’d hated this particular job something fierce. We’d been working swing on this project for the last six weeks. We’d still been hitting up the diner, it being open twenty-four hours, but the change in schedule meant Hayley was off shift way before we got there.

I missed her. She was a kindred spirit, I could see it the moment I’d laid eyes on her; that given half a chance, we’d click. I wanted that. Ached for it fiercely, realizing just how much I was missing out not having a woman in my life. It was a strange sort of relationship I’d found with Cell, but he was hard and the fact he was so closed off and had so many sharp edges meant that I couldn’t always get what I needed from him. I needed more, and so he’d reluctantly agreed to let me find a woman to join us.

Being his friend was sometimes difficult, loving him was sometimes impossible. It was like we were missing the piece that went between us. Like we almost fit, but we needed that third, and we both knew it.

The only thing I could give Cell was that he had been pretty patient when it came to trying to get Hayley’s attention. She was a shy girl, extremely so, and Cell’s usual way of doing things wasn’t going to work. I’d figured that out the first time we’d met her. So, he’d done the rare thing and had let me take lead in trying to get her to go out with us.

It was a painstaking process because she was so skittish. I started off with just having her get used to seeing us every day. The last six weeks had been hell when it came to that, but this job wasn’t going to last forever and we’d be back on days.

Still, I looked forward to dinner tonight. I was hungry, the diner was cheap but with good food, and it meant that even though I couldn’t see her, I could still be where she’d been. Sometimes, if I stilled enough, concentrated hard enough, I could almost smell her light perfume. I, of course, didn’t tell Cell any of that. He’d call me a pussy and would probably laugh at me. It just was the way he was. Emotions just weren’t his thing and he was about as sensitive as bedrock to anything that didn’t affect him directly.

“Come on! Quit your fuckin’ day dreamin’ and get on it,” he snapped at me and I realized I’d been staring into space for probably longer than a minute, just thinking about her.

We did that for each other as friends, Cell kept me grounded, while I softened some of his sharper edges. I walked down the road in my reflective, asphalt stained gear, stinking of the shit and got to Cell and the bikes. He lit up a cigarette, already astride his 2005 Electra Glide.

I threw a leg over my own Harley and dropped onto the seat with a grunt. Cell looked over at me and asked, “You want your colors?” I shook my head, slipping the clear safety glasses onto my face and reaching for my helmet dangling off my handlebar.

“The fuck is that about?” he demanded and I scowled at him.

“I’m sick of the smell,” I said and held out my arms so he could take in my road grime stained, and sweaty appearance.

“Home and shower before dinner then?”

I nodded, and we fired up our bikes, pulling up to the edge of the grassy median we parked them on and up onto the shoulder of the highway. We waited for the truck barreling our way to pass before we pulled onto the road to head back to the club which was still home for us for now. The late summer heat dulled from blast furnace to oven temperature; the wind blowing past me drying the sweat to my skin, causing me to itch. I wanted a shower, clean clothes, and to give my cut and colors the respect they deserved by not putting them on over my rank ass.

Duracell rode ahead and to the left of me, the wind lifting the tee off his back, the angry red weal of scar from where he’d taken a shiv for me when we’d been locked up, picked out by my headlight against his pale skin. Thick, raised, and ropy, he’d lost a kidney in that attack and only by the grace of whatever power that be was I caught up as one of the aggressors and locked up in solitary the entire time he was in the infirmary recovering.

We’d fucking lucked out. His cell mate had been the one to attack me, and Cell had given as good as he’d gotten. My cellie had been released, and so when I got out of solitary and Cell had gotten out of the hospital, we’d ended up housed together. It’d made the rest of our bid go much, much, smoother.

We pulled up out front of the club and backed our bikes into line, shutting them off. I sat for a moment and listened to the insects. This place was different than where we’d come from. Way more peaceful. I was still torn up on the inside over what happened with our old club. All that time spent behind bars and for what? Nothing…

Duracell and I had taken the fall for the lot of them on some pretty fuckin’ serious weapons charges. By all rights, we should still be in prison, but the club had tried to help, had gotten the best fuckin’ attorney and man… that guy… We’d pled guilty, and it’d been a sweet plea deal. Ten year sentence each, managed to get out in five. We had to turn states evidence on our supplier, though. We’d done it with the club’s blessing, because fuck them – they weren’t club and the chapter could have always found another supplier but they didn’t get the fucking chance.

After release, Cell and I had wanted to relocate, had to go through hell in a hand basket with the state we’d come from seeing as we had a year of parole left to serve, but we’d been able to make it happen. Still, our old club was in shambles by the time we’d gotten out, most of them dead and when it came to the shambles part of things, so were we. We’d barely survived prison and I do mean barely.

We’d lucked out that Dragon’s crew had been in dire need of members, and had also been spending a good portion of their time going straight. We needed straight if we wanted to keep out of prison. I sure as fuck never wanted to go back. Cell? He could care less where he ended up, but that was part of why he needed me. To keep him straight out here. To have someone watch his back the way he’d watched mine on the inside.

I dragged my mind back to the here and now and went to my room in the back outbuilding I liked to call the barracks. I picked out some clean clothes; a pair of worn, but comfortable jeans, some fresh boxers and some clean socks out of the dresser, before I went to the closet and pulled down a clean black tee shirt. It was a little on the faded side, like the light denim of the Levi’s but with no holes. I couldn’t say the same about a lot of my wardrobe, I just couldn’t be bothered with upgrading anything.

I trekked back down to the bathroom at the end of the hall and went in, dropping my clean clothes and towels on one end of the bench outside the showers. Stripping down quickly and efficiently, I padded across the cold tiles to get the shower started up, waiting for the water to warm up before ducking under the spray.

God, the heat felt good against sore muscles. I put my hands against the tile wall and let the water beat mercilessly between my shoulder blades, the tightness easing some under the punishing spray that just wasn’t quite enough for me. It never really was. I needed a good massage but didn’t know where to go around here to get one.

I jumped when the door creaked, and looked back over my shoulder. Cell dropped his shit on the bench next to where mine lay and dropped the towel off from around his waist. Fuck, he was hard, but I wasn’t in the mood. Still, it was Cell, and he typically got what he wanted out of me. It was hard to say no, and the times that I did, he ended up winning me over anyways.

I thrust my face into the spray, holding my breath, holding it there, until Cell shoved me hard against the wall. He braced an arm across my shoulders and the back of my neck, shoving me forward while his other arm snaked around my waist, hauling back, setting me up so he could fuck me. Adrenaline coursed through me and I resisted, which only made him laugh a little.

“You know you fighting me only makes me want it more,” he said, and I fucking hated that he was right. It’d come down to this when we’d been in prison, and when we’d gotten out, it’d just sort of kept up. I’d been okay with it, but then again, I’d always been pretty comfortable with what I liked, as in if I liked it, I liked it… I just rolled with it and I liked Cell… but just Cell. I would never let another man do this to me.

Neither I nor Cell considered ourselves gay. We weren’t, really. Again, it was just something about it being Cell. Any other guy and I don’t think it’d be there for me the attraction, not just the willingness to let a guy fuck me. I liked women, never even considered myself bisexual, or even curious before Cell. Things were just different with Duracell. We’d grown close, tight, two pieces of some bigger whole. Like we were some fractured personality or some shit… I don’t know how to explain it.

Even though I was a willing participant when it came to sex with Cell, I fought him this time. I wasn’t in the fucking mood, but it was useless, per usual, and the more he held me against the wall, the more he laughed about having the upper hand, the more my resolve to resist diminished. My cock stirred a couple seconds into the struggle and when he did me the courtesy of giving me a reach around, which he didn’t always do, my resolve crumbled completely and I was all in.

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