Page 2 of Talon (Road Rebels MC 2)
It consumed our lives, trying to get Dad back on track, but the way he coped was downing alcohol in order to swallow his pain pills.
I tried to get Jace to go back to school, or at least let me help him get his G.E.D. I tried to convince him that he couldn’t allow Dad to take him down the way he was. My Dad became reliant on him to a point where Jace felt wholly responsible for our father’s wellbeing, and all the while I was trying to convince him that he wasn’t. That our father was a grown man capable of leaning on his wife if he needed someone.
But all Jace kept telling me was once Dad got better, he’d go back.
Things never work out the way we want to, I suppose. I dug myself harder and harder into my schooling, taking impossible classes in high school and doing early college courses in order to earn credit. I would get up with Dad in the middle of the night whenever he needed help getting to the bathroom or taking his pain medication, but he eventually stopped asking for me when I stopped picking him up cases of beer at the grocery store.
And all Jace did was gravitate towards The Road Rebels as the stress in our house skyrocketed.
Before I left for college, I was still trying to convince Jace to go back to school. Anything to get him out of the motorcycle world he seemed entranced to be in. When he wasn’t taking care of Dad, he was off joyriding and drinking with his new friends, and I got curious as to what drew him to that lifestyle.
So, I begged and begged him to take me for a ride sometime, and he finally caved.
I still didn’t quite understand the appeal, but there was one biker that caught my eye. He was tall and lanky, quiet and kept to himself. Jace said his name was Talon, and that he was kind of an oddball. Smart and computer savvy and I started wondering what in the world someone like that was doing in some sort of motorcycle club.
I struck up a conversation with him one night, but it never really blossomed into anything.
I kept telling Jace to keep taking me with him, but he wasn’t having it. He kept making up excuses as to why I couldn’t go with him. Things about ‘official business’ and ‘private meetings’ and stuff like that. But when I brought up the fact that he just didn’t want me around Talon, he clammed up.
I finally just started coming around on my own, showing up at the bar with Mom’s car after she’d settled in for the night. Jace would always be so upset whenever he’d see me walk through those doors, but the small smile that would creep across Talon’s face would make Jace’s verbal lashings worth it.
His blue eyes sucked me in every single time.
I had a massive crush on him for two years before I left for college. I was bound for Florida State and was determined to major in music. I wanted to bring beauty into a world that had tried to swallow both Jace and I whole. I wanted to find a career in the artistic world so I could forget all the awful things that happened while I was away at college.
I didn’t come home once I left because I was working my way through school. I took classes and worked as a part-time secretary at a local law firm, trying my best to not drown in student loans. I heard from Jace randomly, and every time I did, it seemed that there was always bad news. Mom left Dad. Dad drank himself to death. Mom died in a car wreck after becoming a drunk because of Dad’s death.
I made it a point to not drink the entire time I was in college.
I grieved them, but I didn’t go home for their funerals. They’d fought so much when Jace and I were growing up that I had thrown up an emotional wall with them. I memorialized them the only way I knew how, and then I kept trucking with my degree.
I was determined to graduate and not allow myself to be derailed.
Jace was the only family I had left, honestly. Our grandparents died when we were pretty young, and all of our aunts and uncles wanted nothing to do with us. My Dad was the black sheep of his family, and my mother had pissed off everyone on her side of things. Family reunions weren’t something we indulged in, and Christmas cards from family members weren’t something that lined our fridge during the holidays.
Hell, we almost never celebrated the holidays anyway.
But now, I was holding my diploma in my hand. Now, I was packed down with all of my stuff in my car and headed home. I’d graduated from school with no debt to my name and a degree I was proud of, and I was ready to celebrate with Jace.
But I was also ready to celebrate with the guys from the club as well.
Specifically, I was ready to see if Talon would still give me the time of day.
When I’d left for college, Jace was still just a prospect. I couldn’t talk him into going back to school, but I could tell the club was enveloping him into their clan. While school and music were my escapes, The Road Rebels seemed to be his, so I eventually hopped on his bandwagon and supported him during his induction process.
I couldn’t wait to see if they’d actually accepted him or not.
I rolled up into the driveway of our parent’s home as memories started flooding back to my mind. I still have no idea why Jace had been so dead set on making this his own home, but I was willing to give it a shot. I stepped out of my car and walked up to the porch, my mind reeling with memories of the fighting and the shouting as I raised my hand to knock on the door.
And the moment Jace threw it open, all the memories ceased.
“Gemma!” he exclaimed.
His brown hair and brown eyes looked like home to me. He had a small beard on his face, a dark auburn beard that bled right down into his neck. I threw my arms around him and squealed as he picked me up, his five-foot-eleven stature hugging me close.
“What the hell you doin’ here, sis?” he asked.
“I graduated, you idiot,” I said, grinning.
“Wait, holy shit. You did? Congratulations.”
“Could I come in?” I asked.
“The fuck kinda question is that? Get in here.”
I walked in, and immediately spotted the cut hanging on the banister of the staircase. I walked over to it and fingered the leather, holding it up to take a look at it. The logo on the back of it boasted of The Road Rebels, and my jaw dropped as I slowly turned around towards him.
“Jace. Are you a member now?” I asked.
“Been that way for about three years now,” he said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“Figured you didn’t really care about it.”
I tossed the cut back onto the banister and wrapped my arms around his neck.
“Of course I care about it. I’m so happy for you,” I said.
He hugged me close while we stood there in the foyer of our childhood home. It was the first time I’d been here where there wasn’t any fighting. No beer bottles were being thrown, and no cuss words were whizzing by my ears. The house held an eerie silence to it while breathing out the secrets it kept stored within its walls.
“Let’s go get a drink to celebrate,” I said.
“I’ve got some in the fridge,” Jace said as he released me.
“Oh, come on. Take me to the club to get a drink,” I said.
“No.”
“Jace…”
“I’m not taking you by that place, Gemma.”
“And why not?” I asked.
There was a flash of something behind his eyes. Something that told me there was trouble brewing in our little corner of the world.
“I’ll stick right by your side,” I said.
He sighed, and I could tell I was wearing him down.
“And I’ll pay,” I said.
“Gemma, come on,” he said.
“I won’t even indulge myself by telling embarrassing stories of you while we were growing up.”
