Page 88 of Between Brothers

Chapter 39

Blue

I picked up cones, stacking them, walking alongside the pickup and heaving them up into the bed while another guy, Chip, stood in the bed and arranged them neatly.

“You doin’ alright, man?” he called down to me and I looked up and nodded.

“Yeah,” I grunted back, remembering at the last minute that I didn’t have anyone to speak for me anymore and that I needed to make more of an effort to do it.

“Got any plans for lunch? Me and a bunch of the guys were gonna hit Jake’s diner. Ain’t that the place you used to go to every day with Cell?”

“Yeah, my girlfriend works there… I actually planned on it. Today is her first day back to work.”

“Why don’t we all go?”

I nodded, we were actually wrapped up early today, the job completed until we hit the next one tomorrow. I was suddenly looking at a free afternoon.

“How many of us?” I asked.

“Six or seven,” he called back and I heaved up and handed him the next stack.

“Sure, let me call ahead and let her know to expect that many. She might have to move some tables.”

“Sure!”

Chip knocked on the window and Sean who was driving turned around. Chip gave him a big thumbs up and Sean gave one back before getting on the radio.

“That’s all of us boss,” crackled out of the one at my hip and I remembered…

The end of each job, the boss tended to treat all the guys to lunch either that day or the next. Cell and I had only gone once or twice preferring to keep to ourselves. I guessed that was still an option for me but why? I didn’t have anything else to do. That and I was pretty sure the guys had picked Jake’s to get me to go with ‘em so I wouldn’t be on my own. It was a nice gesture and I would have been going anyways, so why the hell not?

I shot a text to Hayley letting her know what was up and we kept on until all our cones and signage was cleaned up.

Several of the guys rode together in their cages but I was on the bike. I didn’t think twice about mounting up and putting my knees in the breeze, but I spared a thought to Hayley and how she might feel about my riding after Cell… I feared a fight might be brewing there, because I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, give up my bike or the club. Not if it was all I was going to have left.

It was everything to hold myself together as it was, lately. Not just for Hayley and the baby, but for me, too. I didn’t want to end up locked up, and I was well aware I somehow dodged that bullet while on my bender. I was also well aware I’d dodged ending up like Cell.

Just thinking about what that would’ve done to Hayley, losing us both within days of each other, I felt sick with guilt. My gorge rising and bile burning the back of my throat. I pulled in at the diner and backed my bike by the door in that space that wasn’t a parking space at all but was perfect for around three bikes next to each other and freed up the rest of the marked out spots for cages.

The rest of the guys on the road crew I worked parked a minute later, a couple of the trucks having to find street parking, the lot pretty full. It was busy at the diner today, and I checked my phone. Hayley had just given me a one letter answer to my text about two minutes after I’d sent it. A simple ‘K.’

I got off the bike and went up to the diner’s door, pulling it open and holding it for Chip, who held it for the boss, who held it for Sean and right on down the line. I was surprised to find my heart thundered in my chest and I was nervous as hell about seeing her. About whether my presence would be welcome or not.

Jake looked out from the kitchen and his face was entirely unfriendly. A booth had a table and chairs moved up to it and was set up for seven, a ‘reserved’ card on it and I looked around for Hayley.

“Table’s for you,” Mel thrust her chin in the direction of the setup with her chin as she breezed by with a pot of coffee in one hand and a tray balanced on the other, making her way across the dining room to her section.

“Thanks, Mel…” I said and she gave me a megawatt smile, likely over the fact that I’d spoken to her.

We all sat down and Hayley came out from the back and the direction of the restrooms, drying her hands on a paper towel. She threw it away in the trash behind the counter and came over to our table, expression guarded, slipping her pad and pen out of her apron.

“What can I get you guys to drink?” she asked lightly and the guys put in their drink orders. She didn’t bother to take mine. I always drank just water, and water is what she brought us first, bringing me an extra-large glass.

She moved as she did before, quietly and withdrawn and it killed me that I was responsible. That Cell and I had brought her so far and that I had set her right back to square one… hell, further back than even that.

I had a lot to answer for and I would crawl on my belly through broken glass if it would make any of it better. I didn’t think it would, though and I didn’t know what to do.

The guys laughed and tried to draw me into conversation and I pretty much found the whole thing to be excruciating, but I knew they all meant well, so I did my best to just go with it. When lunch was over, the pie most of the guys had ordered for dessert devoured, and the bill laid down at our boss’s side I perked up a bit.

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