Page 66 of Carver
In the spirit of full honesty, Grave’s face needs smashing in.
“Grave is an idiot,” Dravin says, but I know there’s more coming. He’s using his calm, patient tone. “But he’s a patched in member of the club. Sure, the brothers patched in before Tyrant was Prez, but the officers get a vote on that. Even back when Tyrant’s father was running the place, they often voted. Zale could be a douchebag, from what I heard, but he wasn’t always like that, and most of his issues stemmed around irrational jealously over his son growing up and into the club and coming for his place. Not that Tyrant was, but that’s what Zale thought. He tried to sabotage Tyrant by banging up his best friend so that Tyrant was alone.”
“Raiden?”
“Yeah. Anyway, that’s all done with, and Zale’s finished now, but the point is, he wasn’t just letting anyone under the sun into the club. There were still rules and a process. If Grave needs watching, I could do that for you, or I could scare him off.”
God, that’s tempting. Having Grave never contact Ginny again would be the best case scenario. Dravin has his business face on. He might as well be telegraphing just how much he’d enjoy doing it.
“Ginny would find out and she’d be angry.” I brush my fingertips over the marble again. It comes to me suddenly. The creation shouldn’t be what I was drawing. I saw this block as a sort of minotaur, but it should be all beast. Fearsome. Crouched. A gargoyle, but not the typical kind. “Ginny angry is a scary thing, but it would be a sad thing too, if it upsets Bronte, which it no doubt will. I could do without the family discord and so could she. Ginny’s doing what shethinksshe wants. She’s stubborn and headstrong. Amazingly smart and kind too, but she’s not giving up. She thinks she wants this.”
I have no idea why. Bronte has no idea why. Only Ginny knows. I’m not even sure if her parents have any inkling of what she’s doing. She could have told them she was going out with friends. Bronte doesn’t like secrets, but it’s not like she’d share her sister’s confidences with her parents just for the sake of sharing, or unless she felt Ginny was truly in a bad spot.
“Maybe this is just a fling,” Dravin suggests, but his face is doing something that betrays his doubt. “She has to know that Grave isn’t the settling down kind.”
“She might think she can change him.”
“Does that seem likely?”
“I don’t know. I’d say no, but feelings make people do things that aren’t in line with their usual logical behaviour.”
“Feelings?”
“I don’t know. Raw and inexplicable attraction.” That counts as feelings, doesn’t it?
“You know that I used to make a living finding people who didn’t want to be found?”
I nod.
“I could keep an eye on Grave. Track him quietly. I don’t have to outright deter him. I could just make sure that he’s behaving.”
I have no idea how he’ll do that, and I feel terrible about asking for one more favor from a man who has already done so much for me and my family. I’d rather that Grave was nowhere near Ginny. He’ll inevitably hurt her, or fuck shit up and she doesn’t need the heartbreak. She’s young and even though she doesn’t think she’s naïve, she’s from a small town. She’s lived most of her life on the farm.
“Leave it with me,” Dravin says into the silence. “I’ll figure something out.”
I want to protest, but now it doesn’t feel right. “I still want to prospect.” I’ve obviously given that lots of thought before the Grave and Ginny thing. “It’s not joining the club that I’m struggling with. I believe in what the club stands for. I’ve met most of the guys now and they’re a good group. I have no family left, and now I have no land to go back to. I’d like to make Hart home for a good long while. Grow my family here, but also growintoa family. Learn from the older guys what it means to be a man. Maybe even get into therapy.”
Dravin doesn’t look surprised. It’s unbelievablyunbelievableto find a group of men who look like they should adhere hard to toxic masculinity, but don’t. Dravin’s not surprised. He can barely hide how thrilled he is.
“There club uses a few online therapists who are pretty good, but there’s an in person one in Seattle, if you’re interested.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He nods, cracking his knuckles and rolling out his hands just to have something to do with them. “A lot of guys who come to the club don’t come as fully formed, functional golden human beings with it all figured out. It’s nice to have the option of talking to someone who knows about PTSD, trauma, and all the other stuff that can get a man up in his head and lock him there.”
“I’ve been struggling with the idea of what I could contribute more than I’ve had an issue with thinking about taking that first step into joining.” It’s painful to admit that, but I’ll put it out there. If I’ve learned anything these past few months, it’s that the pressures I put on myself, the shame I heap onto my own shoulders—it’s a bunch of bullshit.
“You can join and just be a regular member, we all contribute in one way or another. Even those of us who aren’t officers.” Dravin’s not going to convince me not to do this. I was worried that he would, but I think that he can tell that I want to prospect for myself and for the club, not because I truly want to keep tabs on Grave. As he suggested, he could do that for me, and probably far more easily than I’d ever think he could. “They’re here for the brotherhood. We could always use more help with security. Just sitting and monitoring cameras helps, or even installing them. You saw how long it took me to set this place up for you and Kael.”
“Days.”
“It’s just me and Wizard. We’d welcome an extra set of hands.”
“I haven’t talked it over with Bronte yet.”
“Good call.” Dravin whistles sharply in that way that people do when they make hilarious sound effects that start loud and spiral down. “Don’t do as I did when I informed Kael that we were moving here and I was going to be prospecting with a clubright when I knew how much she hated anything to do with motorcycles and that lifestyle. When she found out I was going to be a one percenter, sheone hundred percentwanted to wipe me off the face of the earth. I was driving and she was in the backseat, but luckily her sense of self-preservation won out and she didn’t try to crash the car by kicking me in the head or worse. She did utter some pretty ominous threats after.”
“And then she seduced you.”
