Page 148 of Bitter’s Sweet

The question stops my hands.

I do not know.

That the club will never come first again?

That would be a lie, and I don't even want that. I don’t want him to abandon the men he considers brothers. I don't want to pull him away from something that has been part of him most of his life.

I want him to understand that loving his club does not give him the right to spend my choices like club currency.

Maybe I want him to say he knows that now. Maybe I want him to tell me choosing the club this morning scared him as much as it hurt me.

Maybe I want the man from last night back.

The one who asked before touching my mother’s picture. The one who made CSI ask me for permission. The one who listened when I said sex meant more to me than casual.

The one who looked me in the eye when I told him I didn't share and answered, No other women.

That wasn't vague. That wasn't me imagining a relationship because he made me coffee and fixed my lock.

He agreed.

No other women. No other men. If we were doing this, we didn't share.

“I want him to mean he’s sorry,” I say.

Mercy’s expression softens. “That seems fair.”

“Do you know where he is?”

Her eyes narrow slightly. “Workshop.”

Not clubhouse.

That surprises me.

“What’s he doing there?”

“If I knew everything Bitter Adams did behind closed doors, I’d drink more.”

“Comforting.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“I assumed.”

“You learning.”

We leave the school together.

The carnival has gotten louder as the sun drops. Skull lights blink over vendor tents. Orange lanterns glow along the gravel. A woman in a black wedding dress sells cider donuts beside a coffin-shaped photo booth. Children run around with plastic shovels while their parents drink things that smell suspiciously less legal than the signs claim.

Boogie stands knee-deep in a kiddie pool full of floating bones.

“Teeth don’t count unless they’re attached to jaw!”

A tourist asks if the bones are real.

Chainsaw says, “Legally, no.”