Page 54 of Devil's Work: Dark

While Dark climbs inside the cab with us, Green walks into the house. We leave. I’m glad to have air in the car today. The humidity is off the charts. The cut-it-with-a knife kind.

As always, when we arrive at the Walmart, Dark takes Lacy and the diaper bag, I get Ty’s hand. We walk inside. Dark grabs a cart, sliding Lacy into the front.

My biker gets way too excited about children’s school supplies. Everything he sees, he throws in the cart. Markers aren’t on the list. “Baby, they’re scented!” Folders aren’t on the list. “They got Harley’s on ’em.” The kid is totally kitted out. Oh, but then Ty needs new jeans and T-shirts, boxer briefs because Dark wears boxer briefs. Dark has my kindergartener dressed like a biker. Outlaw biker 2.0, exactly as my sister called it.

While here, we get some grocery shopping out of the way. Breakfast foods and lunch foods for Ty. Items I saw in my sister’s pantry back in Nashville, so I know she likes them. I buy a few treats for Lacy and Dark, too. You wouldn’t think so with a body like his, but the man loves his sweets.

With everything paid for, we load back up into the truck, where he takes us to a little sub shop that makes these best Italian cold cut subs in the world. It’s the special sauce and homemade bread that does it. Dark runs in to grab our lunches while I stay in the car with the kids. It’s amazing how much my life has turned around from a couple of months ago when I had to put back coffee to buy Ty cereal. Now here we are in a car with air waiting on a man to grab us lunch from an actual deli. I pull up a kids’ playlist on my Spotify app and Ty and I start singing while Lacy squeals and tries to sing with us. We’re two choruses in with a song about the alphabet when Dark opens the door to get in. He stares at us.

Okay. He’s still a biker and Rome wasn’t built in a day. I turn off the kids’ music while he gets himself situated. Then we drive to the park. We find a shaded picnic table under a large black walnut tree to eat. The kids are almost too excited to eat, but Dark puts his foot down because he wants to eat his food before we let the kids go wild on the playground. After all, we have to be with them when they do.

“Thank you… for all this,” I say to Dark right before taking a large bite out of my grinder and moaning with the sheer joy of eating this sandwich perfection.

He shakes his head. “Moan like that? You thank me at home, baby.”

“Be prepared.” I mouth to him, to which he smirks and takes a bite of his sandwich. Once we’re full of Italian cold cuts, chips, and drinks, we walk the kids over to the playground, where Dark helps Ty and by “helps,” I mean plays with him on the jungle gym while I dig in the sand with Lacy.

It’s a good day.

The kids are tuckered out when we make it home, both ready for a nap. A kid in each of our arms, Dark opens the front door. I get a glimpse of a white man’s ass and hear, “Harder, baby,” moaned in my sister’s voice before me and the kids are pushed back outside again. I hear grunting as the door slams shut.

Dark sets Ty down on his feet to lean against my leg before charging into the house. That’s when the shouting begins. Ty is about to learn a whole lot of new words and new ways to use words he’s already heard. My sister screams. I see the door fly open and manage to move the kids a split second before Green gets tossed out on his now jeans-covered ass.

“We got kids, man,” Dark shouts at his MC brother. I just keep my mouth shut for now. “What’s wrong with you? You’re supposed to be guarding her, not—”

That’s when I cut him off. “Dark.”

He stops his rant long enough to take in a breath. Then he continues. “Not doing what you were doing.”

“Sorry,” Green says, and to his credit, he really sounds it. “Missed her, man. You’re with Rae. Don’t tell me you don’t get where I’m coming from.”

Dark glances over at me. The look on his face makes my heart do these stupid flips. “Only reason I’m not killing you right now,” he relents. “But don’t let it happen again. Not here.”

Green stands, brushing his jeans off. “Sorry, Rae,” he mumbles as he moves past me and the kids toward his bike. But before he leaves, he turns back to the trailer, to my sister, who is standing in the doorway. “We got more to talk about, Del,” he says.

My sister, to her credit, smiles and nods, then doesn’t look away until his bike is too far down the drive to see from her vantage point any longer.

“Why did Dark and Green have a fight, Mumma?” Ty asks. Thank you, Jesus. He didn’t see.

“Because Green was supposed to be guarding Aunt Dela. Instead, they were… playing a game.”

“Dark guards you and I hear you guys play games, too.”

Oh, my god. He did not just say that.

Dark shoots me a look that says about a hundred different things. “I’m sorry” and “Get that thought out of your head” being the most prevalent. He knows exactly what I’m thinking. That we can’t have sex anymore. But that’s not realistic. He likes it.Ilike it. No. Strike that. Iloveit. He’s the kind of lover most women wish they had in their beds. We just have to be more careful with the noise we make.

“It’s different. Dark lives here. Some games are only okay at your own home.”

“Okay,” Ty says as he yawns.

Okay?Okay.Crisis averted.

Over the next week, tensions become strained, especially between Dela and Dark. Having my sister staying with us hasn’t gone as smoothly as I hoped. Five people in a singlewide trailer. We’re living one on top of the other, then to add in Green, who shows up every morning and just stays until lights out. It’s been… a lot. To stay the least. Couple that with the adjustment for all of us with Ty going to school. We had a routine and now we have to get used to a new one where alarms factor in. Alarms to get us up in the morning. Alarms to remind me Ty needs to be picked up. We have to be so quiet when getting Ty his breakfast because my sister sleeps on the pullout in the living room. But I’m not allowed to take my boy to school without a guard, which means Dark gets up with us, too. Green shows up just before we leave to make sure Dela isn’t left alone. At least I haven’t had to wake up Lacy. She stays with Green and Dela. The whole thing gets me stressed even recounting the week in my head.

Thank goodness we’ve reached Friday without killing anyone. Green’s at the trailer. Dark has one arm slung over the back of my seat in the truck. Ty has his little Mater and Lightning McQueen cars in the back that he’s playing with, giving them voices and making screeching noises as they drive fast around an imaginary track. Once we get up to the elementary school, Dark turns into the circle drive the school designated as the parent drop off and pick up for the youngest students. I get out to walk Ty up to the double glass doors and make sure he gets into the right line. Dark drives the truck over to the adjacent parking lot to wait for me. We do this every morning. Cars aren’t supposed to park in the circle drive.

Ty and I walk through the double doors. I give him a big hug and kiss, then with his backpack on his back, the lunch bag clipped to the bottom, I send him off into his proper line. Other mothers wave, having done the same as me. I know they’ve all seen me with Dark around town. Getting gas or quick stops at the grocery store. We’ve taken the kids to play at the park twice this week and made a stop at the library just to keep Dark and I from going crazy with the extra bodies in the trailer. If any of them have an opinion on the subject, they haven’t said. Not yet, at least. I think the overwhelming experience of getting our little ones off to school outweighs any prejudices for the time being.

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