Page 65 of Carver
Dravin stands by the door like he’s keeping guard, but I think he’s just allowing me space. Bullet, on the other hand, hovers right over Lynette’s shoulder. He’s a good guy. I’vemet them both a few times. Kael told me that Lynette’s been pretty sick all throughout the pregnancy. She’s had several appointments with various doctors, including a specialist in Seattle because it was so bad, but it was just regular morning sickness. Bullet wanted her to take some time and dial back all the work she does for the club. As their lawyer, it’s probably quite intensive. She refused, insisting that working made her feel better, not worse. At least when she was puzzling out club business or prepping paperwork, filing this or that, sitting on meetings, or the thousand other things she likely does, she was thinking about that and not about how nauseous she felt.
She stacks the paperwork neatly. She’s already prepped everything with little red sticky tabs marking the places where I’ll have to sign.
I swallow hard, focusing on her efficient movements so I don’t stare at her bump like a creep. I don’t want to be weird. I just can’t stop thinking about how Bronte must have looked. I wish I could have seen how her body changed. Touched her belly and felt Ellie kick back. I’ve seen the videos, multiple times.
I did see Bronte when she was pregnant. I just didn’tknow.
Every time I tried to beat myself up about that or expressed how sorry I was that I wasn’t there, going through it with her because I chose being a dumbass instead, Bronte’s pulled me back. The next time will be different for us. Whenever we decide it’s the right time, I know that I’d love to have another baby. Bronte wants four. She doesn’t mind if there’s a bit of an age gap between Ellie and our next baby, though. She and Ginny have quite a few years between them, and they’ve always been best friends.
A week ago, when the shop was just about finished, I knew I had to get serious about selling my land. I couldn’t let Dravin and Kael carry the financial burden of this place alone, even though they’d made it clear that they were fine with whatever arrangement worked best for me.
I listed the land just locally, on some classifieds sites instead of hiring a realtor. It didn’t take long for a guy named Bill Warner to contact me. He had a client who regularly purchased farmland and was always looking for more. I don’t even know the guy’s name, because he’s buying the land under a numbered corporation, but it doesn’t matter.
He had cash and the deal moved fast.
Dravin suggested that I use Lynette to do up all the legal paperwork for the sale. He said the club would cover her fee, but I couldn’t let them do that, especially not when I was getting a good sum of money from the land sale.
I sold it for well under value, but not just because I wanted the land priced to sell. Whoever that guy is, he’s going to have to undergo a massive cleanup project. The fields haven’t been worked in a generation. They’re more stones and weeds than usable land. It’s not like he bought prime real estate.
Lynette makes quick work of the signatures. She’s entirely professional and utterly thorough, so the whole thing takes less than five minutes.
After, she stacks the paperwork and slips it back into her black bag, she smiles at me. “Closing is in a few days, and we should have the money by the end of that day or the next. I can let you know when it comes in.”
“Thanks.” I mean it to come out as a normal word, but it sounds croaky and choked.
Lynette nods and Bullet sets a hand on my shoulder before they leave together. As soon as he opens the door, he starts chiding her about her coat again, threatening to carry her to the car himself. She just laughs and shakes her head, which causes him to shed his leather jacket and drape it over her shoulders. It’s his club jacket,and I’m not sure if there’s a rule about anyone else wearing it or not.
Dravin closes the door and clicks the lock into place again. He folds his arms over his chest, but drops them after a moment of silent contemplation. He saunters over, but changes his mind and his direction and goes to inspect the stone the club had moved from my old workshop, and the new blocks of marble that I ordered. He can’t stand still. His restlessness is obvious.
I didn’t hear him pull up, so he must have driven his car behind Bullet and Lynette’s vehicle. It’s more than the whole cage thing that’s driving him to pace around the stones, eying them up like they’ve personally offended him.
“You’re absolutely sure about this?” he asks after his eighth lap.
I knew that if I waited him out, he’d voice what was on his mind. “Yes. It was nice of Ginny to go take photos for me so I could make the listing. Everyone’s done a lot of work already. I can’t go back on the sale.”
“Technically, you could.” Dravin’s leather jacket creaks as he raises his shoulders in a shrug.
It’s not really a shrugging matter. “I won’t.”
“I just want to make sure that you’re selling it because you want to and not because you think that you have to pay us back right away. We’re more than happy to lease the space to you.”
Other than the leather jacket, Dravin looks like a soldier today. The black fatigues and combat boots are allex-SEAL,but his hair is what Kael playfully likes to call emo. The dark strands are longer in the front and shorter at the back. It overhangs the scars on his forehead and down his temple, as well as fake eye.
“I know. I want to do this. It needed to be done, even if I didn’t want to.”
“But you do?” he asks, pressing.
“I did and I still do.” I confirm. I’ve caught Dravin’s restlessness and wander the large space. I stop in front of the stone I’m soon going to be roughing out. “I’m also going to say something that you’re going to try to persuade me out of. It’ll sound like I’m doing it for all the wrong reasons, but I’d like to do it anyway.” I glance up to gauge Dravin’s reaction, but now he’s the one waiting me out. He’s not going to interrupt me for anything. “I’ve been meeting with that physical therapist online once a day for the past week and a half. I’ve already noticed a difference in my arm. It’s never going to be the way it was, just like my face, but I’m hopeful that I can get it to some sort of place where I’d be able to do the things I want and need to do.”
“Like ride.”
“Like ride.”
“And you think that I’m going to dissuade you from talking to Tyrant about prospecting with the club because?”
“Because I half want to do it to keep an eye on Grave.” The point of this conversation is the truth, but it’s still hard to putit out there without sounding like a total asshat. “Maybe not half, but a small portion. He’s been texting Ginny. He got her number at Ellie’s birthday party, or she got his. It doesn’t really matter how it happened, but she’s been texting him. He hasn’t beenunresponsive. She’s told Bronte that they ‘hung out’ on the weekend.” I use inverted air quotes because thisneedsit.
Also, I’m too polite to say hooked up, especially when it comes to Bronte’slittlesister.
