Smoke and Steel (Wild West MC #2)(64)

She’d dragged him through Denver last Sunday, not attempting to hide her glee.

When she was done, he’d dragged in all the shit she bought (but he paid for), and unless she needed him to assist, he stretched out on the couch, smoking a joint and enjoying watching her unpack and place stuff in his house.

His kitchen now had a black blender, a black coffeemaker, a white crock that had all his utensils sticking out of it, a thick, wooden, countertop butcher block upended against the backsplash, a black olive oil bottle (filled), a black soap dispenser at his sink and a two-tier wire thing on the island.

It had been empty when he took off on Monday.

Now it had bananas in the top and fruit at the bottom, the bright colors of the fruit stark in the monochrome of the space.

He felt his lips quirk and turned to the living room.

He then stopped dead.

She’d bought some pillows for the furniture and a blanket she tossed over a chair. He’d set up the lamp that arched over the couch and the other one that had a tripod base she told him to put in the corner. She’d added the lamp on the table at one side of the couch. It looked like two black rods at right angles to each other (she said it was all about rugs and lighting, and when she’d switched on that rod light when it got dark, and it cast a soft glow on one side of the couch, he saw she wasn’t wrong).

Last, there was a gray rug that had black lines running through it, for which they had to move the furniture to roll it out over his bare hardwood floors.

She’d also bought some small frames you’d set out on tables. She said she had to think on what to do with them. And she’d added some pillows to his bed and two lamps for the nightstands in his bedroom.

But that had been the totality of her Sunday haul.

Now, however, the wall behind the couch was wallpapered in what looked like black crocodile, and mounted on it was a huge rectangular picture in a chrome frame. On it, there was a black skull on white positioned to the left. It looked like it was in motion or disintegrating because there were dots to the right that grew thicker the closer they got to the skull.

The wall and print changed the entire room and it was fucking fantastic.

He walked in to get a closer look and stopped again, because his TV was now set into a dark gray media unit that had glass front cupboards at the bottom and shelves on the sides and above the TV.

He got closer and saw she’d taken the books that he had stacked in one of the bedrooms, because he didn’t have anywhere to put them, and set them in those shelves. One of the frames she’d bought had a picture of Nanook being a good boy, sitting and smiling up at her behind the camera. Holding the books in place were simple, black bookends, but there was a chrome mudflap girl leaning back into one hand to hold up one line of books.

Though she wasn’t a traditional mudflap girl. She had the tits and legs, but she had a ponytail in her hair, was wearing a skirt and had one hand up, reading a book.

Last, alone on a shelf, there was a big square book that said 100 Years at the top and had the orange Harley Davidson logo in the middle.

Core moved to it, grabbed it and flipped it open to see text and pictures of the story of Harley Davidson Motorcycles.

His throat was fucked-up when he put it back and did a turn to take it all in again.

He’d grown up in a trailer, and when his mom left his dad, they’d moved to another trailer. They had the basics, and not much more, and those were purchased at Goodwill, the Salvation Army or thrift stores, and these included his clothes and hers.

His mom had two jobs for as long as Core was able to understand the concept, one was as a waitress in a truck stop and the other was as a bartender in a seedy bar, so she was hardly raking it in at either.

Didn’t matter she didn’t make much, they had even less when his dad rode up against a tough time, which was a lot since the man never bothered to hold down a job.

In those times, he’d come over and demand what was in her wallet.

He’d then beat her to shit or sweet talk her into going with him to her bedroom, something that also happened a lot, not because she wanted it, but because she didn’t want him to beat her to shit.

Core had learned to take off when they were back there because he didn’t want to hear his mom and dad fuck. Or, what he understood later was happening, his dad coercing his mother into nonviolent rape.

Though when he got older, and more importantly bigger, the night happened where he made it plain he wasn’t going to put up with his father’s visits again.

He’d had some practice fighting by then, but his old man was an easy win, being a man wasted by booze who could only make himself feel like a man by beating a woman and intimidating her into taking his dick.

After that, all that shit stopped for nearly a year.

It had been a golden time for him and his mom. The only one they’d ever had. He’d gotten a job helping one of his bud’s dad’s roofing business during the summer, and with his first check, he’d bought her a brand-new dress.

When he went back to school, it was the first time she bought him new jeans, shirts and sneakers.

It was also the first time girls gave a shit about him, and he didn’t have to beat bloody anyone who gave him crap about being poor as dirt and living in a trailer. Though he’d spent years making that message clear, there was always some fuck who needed it told to him.

That golden time ended when his father came back for one last epic round, doing it at a time when Core wasn’t there, and Core knew he planned that shit.