“Bullshit.”
I threw my hands up in the air.
“He’s cursed, Jessa. That’s what he told you and you won’t take it seriously. But his father was cursed, and so was his grandpapa. And you can choose not to believe it but I have doctor reports that show there’s nothing wrong with his throat.”
I blinked.
“So until you embrace that shit, this won’t work. You’ve got to believe in something, Jessa. So you either believe in Mathias or you don’t. But if you don’t, you need to leave him the fuck alone. He’s not only your feel-good toy.”
“You think I don’t know that? I’ve never had this, with anyone. I never would again. He’s too special to lose. I was just angry that someone took away his voice. It’s not fair.”
“Nothing’s fair. And you know as well as I do that his voice is stronger than most who can speak.”
I processed that. “Will he forgive me?”
“I’m guessing yes, but you’ll have to do some groveling.”
We sat in silence as I pondered that. And then I asked him something I couldn’t have if Mathias had been there. “He never wants to talk about what happened when the Chaos first hit. What happened to him? To both of you?”
“You really want to know?” Bishop’s deceptively lazy lion’s eyes flickered over me.
“Yes. He never makes a big deal about it. Says it’s nothing.”
“Maybe that’s what he’s got to tell himself to survive.” Bishop was letting me in, telling me inside information on Mathias—and Mathias might never know I had the info. But Bishop was giving me a way to understand his best friend and my lover better, even though Mathias was angry with me.
He stared up at the dark sky for a long while, and I feared he’d changed his mind, but then he said, “He lost his family.”
I found it curious that Bishop said his family instead of our family, but I didn’t comment and he continued. “Mom died a year before the Chaos and Dad—well, look, he was great but after Mom died, he wasn’t the same. We lost him when we lost her. And so we were already on our own when it hit. We’d been mourning him and her and so, when the bayou rose up and washed the house away, Mathias looked at it like it was the right thing to happen. Like it was a circle-of-life kind of thing. He grew up believing that.”
“Do you?”
“I’m more of an eye-for-an-eye kind of man. So’s Mathias, when it comes right down to it. But I’ll take on his burdens, because he took on mine, never blinked and never looked back.”
I wanted to know more, but I didn’t push it. Men had their secrets—so did best friends, and their bond was stronger than most. I wanted a friend like that.
Bishop gave me a hard look. “You’ve got one. You’ve got two, if you’re the real deal.”
I wondered if Mathias was also very suspicious of me. I supposed they didn’t get that far in life by being naive. I’d been naive and look where it had gotten me.
Right into Mathias’s bed. “I need to learn signing faster. I need to communicate with him better.”
“You already do communicate, Jessa. It’ll take a long time to get fluent, but the more you do it...”
“Thank you.”
He nodded. “Keep using your signs as much as you can. Trying to recognize them without actually doing them yourself’s too hard.”
“I feel like I might never be able to communicate with him.”
“Honey, whatever you did is getting through just fine.”
Well sure, but that was sex. And what did sex have to do with anything? It hadn’t done anything for me before. Sex had been sex and love had been love and as odd as it sounded, there hadn’t been a connection between the two. At least not in my world. Then again, in my world, love was more rare than sex, and I’d mistaken love for something it hadn’t been.
And maybe that’s the problem in your world.
I knew that now, but only because I knew what love was. I knew it every time I looked at Mathias, but I wasn’t sure how to tell him.
Then again, maybe he already knew.
Man in the box
Mathias
Bish found me working out in the warehouse. The basement was set up like a training gym, with all sorts of equipment, and plenty of punching bags.
And I was punching the hell out of one of them, punching and kicking until sweat and anger nearly blinded me. And I fucking hated that Jessa had made me this way.
“Not the first time you heard someone call you that.”
“Of course, he was right. It was actually pretty damned delicate, all things considered. Most of the time it was stupid or retard or dumb mute. And I’d shrug it off, because it never really mattered.
It mattered now. It mattered a whole hell of a lot.
“I don’t think she meant it.”
I paused. Now you’re sticking up for her.
“Yes.”
Fuck off, Bish.
But he wouldn’t. Because that’s how it went with us. “You think she’s going to screw us.”
Maybe not intentionally, but we both know this is a really bad idea.
“Not like we haven’t made the best of those before.”
He was on my side. Always was, no matter how defensive I got. He’d always diffuse me. She’s bringing hell to our doorstep.
“And we helped her right along. You don’t have to be scared to feel, M.”
I punched the bag viciously. That was the bad thing about being so close to Bish. I couldn’t hide a damned thing. Bish came behind the bag to hold it steady and we fell into familiar patterns. “Caspar said he’s thinking of putting you up against Keller’s top guy.”
That was a big fucking deal. First, because we weren’t official Defiance yet, and also because losing to Keller’s man would screw Defiance badly. Keller might have it out for the MC, but the fights were a whole separate thing, and the betting—and the money won and lost—were not to be fucked with.
“You won’t lose.”
I punched four times hard and fast, no stopping. My arms burned, my eyes stung. And then I turned and walked toward the showers, not stripping until I was already under the cold water. Sometimes, there’d be a tinge of warmth but not today. I needed the cold to put out the burn.
“You get sensitive about the ASL stuff.”
I bit back a smart answer, because Bish was right. And Tru and some of the other guys in Defiance were learning it through Bish. He had some charts and he was the one who actually taught them. They probably figured I didn’t teach them because it upset me. Really, it was because I had zero patience for teaching anyone anything.
Yeah, Bish and I, we had everyone fooled.
But there was something about Jessa that let me know I couldn’t fool her for long.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Pain and glory
Jessa
I showered and slept, and then Bishop came to check on me. When he knocked on the door, I admit I was hoping for it to be Mathias, but I knew it wouldn’t be.
“Can you take me to see him?”
He nodded.
“He’ll be angry about that, right?”
Bishop laughed. “You think that scares me? Come on.”
We ended up at the tattoo shop on the far end of the compound. It was open to the public on some days, but the sign on the door now said Private. Bishop motioned for me to go inside, and I guessed I was on my own after that. Because, with my hand on the door, I looked back and he was walking away with purpose in his long strides.