Page 20 of Absinthe Dreams
“I’m glad it worked out for you,” she said softly, and she quickly took another drink of her coffee.
Good girl,I thought to myself. She knew when to quit and change the subject.
“Word says this time it’s another club,” she murmured, and she looked me straight in the eyes. “I only bring it up, so I know who to watch for and potentially avoid if we’re going to be seen together out there.”
I nodded slowly. “Bayou Brethren,” I told her simply. “You shouldn’t see any inside New Orleans city limits, but if you do, and I’m not there for some reason, you better call me.”
She nodded. “One caveat,” she said. “The hospital is Switzerland. Period. What happens in the hospital, who I treat, all of that remains as private as the club business I’m not supposed to know about. I don’t know, I don’t want to know, and when it comes to my job, it’s the same for you. I don’t care who it is in my emergency room. They’re going to get the same standard of care across the board. Capice?”
I chuckled and nodded. It was an easy ask.
“Slow down there, Godfather – it’s all good. I can do that for you if you can do it for me.”
“Deal,” she said judiciously.
She held out her hand to shake, and it took something to suppress my smile as I took her soft hand in mine and shook. I wasn’t trying to come across as disingenuous in my amusement.
“Not going to lie,” she said a few moments later, when a silence had pooled between us. “This is honestly the most comfortable I’ve been since moving here in med school. This,” she motioned back and forth between me and her, “is the most familiar I’ve felt. Is that weird?”
I shook my head after thinking about it for a moment.
“No. You grow up a certain way, even if it’s not considered the healthiest, or whatever… You leave home, it’s only natural you seek out things that feel like home at first, you know?”
“That sounds a lot like the explanation the hospital social workers give to women who come into the ER from domestic violence… especially the ones who grew up in a volatile environment. ‘It’s not your fault, honey. When you escape a violent home, it’s only in our nature to find a love that feels like home at first. That’s how these cycles continue to perpetuate themselves.’” She mimicked a kind and conciliatory tone, and I let my gaze rove her lovely face.
“Was your home violent?”
She shook her head. “No, not really. It wasn’tnormalby any means, with Dad being in the club and spending stretches of our childhood in prison. He never hit us or our mother out of anger. I mean, there was discipline, but never abuse or anything. The club was all pretty much our uncles… you know?”
I smiled and briefly wondered if I felt like one of her uncles, rather than anything else. I sure as hell hoped not. Besides, we were too fuckin’ close in age for an uncle/niece kind of a thing. Hopefully, she didn’t feel like I was a brother, because I certainly didn’t feel that at all, looking at her.
“What?” she asked when she realized I was perhaps staring just a little too long.
“I’m not one of your uncles,” I said gently, and she smiled and shook her head.
“No, it’s not like that,” she said and hid behind another drink of her coffee. I took a drink of my own. I was burning up with curiosity, the question on the tip of my tongue…then what is it like?
I didn’t want to spook her, though, so I let her change the subject quickly when she said, “So you’ve dodged the question long enough. What’s the plan for today?”
I smiled and took a long, deep draught of my cooling coffee and said, “Dress for the slide and not for the ride. We got places to go and people to see.”
She smiled then, a little excitement lighting her eyes, and I asked, already knowing the answer. “You do know how to ride, right?”
“I do. I have a helmet and everything. It’s just it’s been too long.”
“Good deal,” I said. “Do what you gotta do.” I checked my watch. “You got about an hour to do it in.”
“Alright,” she said, and she seemed almost giddy. I liked that. It turned me on that much more.
CHAPTER NINE
Genesis…
I’d slept better than I had in an age last night. I found it funny how, even though I didn’t know Chainsaw, it felt like I did because I knew and understood the code he lived by.
I knew he was inherently dangerous, but he wasn’t any sort of dangerto me. At least, not yet. I knew that could change at the drop of a hat, but right now? He felt like he owed me, and I knew what that meant in these circles. The debt would be satisfied when he deemed it so, and right now? For me? It was far better the devil I knew than the one I didn’t.
Again, while I didn’t know Chainsawpersonally, I’d grown up around many men like him, and after talking with him last night. After looking him in the eye and finally feelingheardafter so long, I knew I had made the right decision by calling him.
