Nolan: Return to Signal Bend (Signal Bend)(2)

Their mom played guitar and sang. She’d once done it more or less professionally, doing little gigs around the region, but now she managed a bar, so she didn’t play much. She’d get on stage at work every now and then, and she’d played some club events, but not much more than that. Nolan missed the days when her guitar was out all the time.

The timer went off, and she pulled a tray of rolls from the oven. “Lessons when his grades get better. Besides, he’s ten. I think it’ll be more than a couple of years before he’s ready to be in a band. Loke! Wash your hands!”

Nolan helped his mom set out breakfast. When his little brother came in, hands still dripping, he ran straight for Nolan and gave him a hug. “Mom said you might be grumpy today. Are you grumpy?”

“Nope. I’m good. Heard you banging around in there. How’s your grade in reading?”

Loki sighed dramatically and slid his hand through his curly, dark hair. “The books are so boring. I like comic books. I found a box of ones you made, but Mom said I have to ask you before I read them. Can I read them?”

As a kid, Nolan had drawn all the time. He’d had some stupid dreams of designing a video game, or being the next Alan Moore or something. He’d been a pretty lame kid, really. All dreams and no life. “What are you reading for school?”

Another big sigh. “Where the Red Fern Grows. It’s so old and boring, and it’s all about this stupid boy who saves up for puppies and how long it takes him to save up and how he has to walk to get the dogs. I like dogs”—with his sock-clad foot, he nudged Thor, their old monster of a mutt, who was lying under the table waiting for nibbles to come his way—“but this Billy is dumb and boring. And there’s not even a red fern in the story. The title is stupid, too. I want to read X-Men instead.”

“You have a project due on that book on Wednesday, Loke. You need to get it read,” their mom said.

“A diorama. It’s so stupid.”

Nolan remembered that book. It had made him cry. In class. In fifth grade. Not a highlight in his memory reel.

Of course, his memory reel was mostly lowlights.

He reached over and set his hand on his little brother’s head. He was sixteen years older, and their dad had been killed when Loki was only two months old, so Nolan was kind of the closest thing Loke had to a father. He always tried to keep that in mind. “I get it, big guy. I really do. School can be a drag. But if you want drum lessons, you need to pull your grades up, right?”

“Yeah,” Loki sighed.

“Tell you what. I have work this morning, but I’ll come back after, and you can read to me about Billy and the puppies. We’ll talk about it, and I’ll help you plan out your diorama. When you get that project done, you can read my old comics.”

“I don’t think we can finish it tonight. It’s pretty long.”

Nolan grinned. “I’ll stay tonight, and we can read it tomorrow, too, then. I’m free and clear tomorrow. We’ll get it done.”

“Yeah? Cool! Thanks, bro!” Calling Nolan ‘bro’ was a new thing Loki had picked up recently, probably trying to mimic his uncles. The Horde all called each other ‘brother’ or ‘bro.’ That was what the club was, more than anything else: a brotherhood. Family. The best one Nolan—or his mom, for that matter—had ever had.

With a laugh, Nolan ruffled his little brother’s hair and went back to his burnt sausage and canned cinnamon roll.

His mom gave him a thoughtful look and then reached across and set her hand flat on the table, near his plate. She still wore her wedding and engagement rings, ten years after Havoc’s death, even though they hadn’t even been married a year when he’d died. The man had left a deep impression in their world. One so deep he’d erased Nolan’s deadbeat biological father from meaning and had become the only father he’d wanted—or needed.

And then he’d gone and died.

Nolan met his mother’s eyes and gave her the smile she needed to see. The one that said he was okay. He’d perfected that smile.

And he really was okay. Just as he’d found a way to be okay after his father’s death; he’d found a way to be okay after Ani’s. Time made scars and life went on. It had been ten years since Havoc, four since Ani. He was okay. Having his life. Just having a hard day in it every now and then.

Just like his mom.

Since this past summer, though, not long after Loki’s birthday, when the SoCal charter of the Night Horde MC had almost been destroyed in a hellfire of blood and death, he’d felt less okay.

Someone he’d thought long gone, probably dead and definitely no longer a danger, had risen up in the middle of the chaos in SoCal. Someone Nolan hated with a sick, simmering fury. David Vega.

Since then, Nolan had felt his old, restless anger pacing again at the bottom of his gut.

“Nolan?”

He looked up to see his mom’s head tilted and her brow furrowed, and he realized that he was dragging his fork across his plate, tines down, making a low screeching noise. He stopped. “Sorry.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

He finished his coffee and pushed back from the table. “I’m always okay. You worry too much. I gotta go, but I’ll be back.” He looked at Loki. “You be ready to read, guy. We’ll get that book done.”