Page 71 of Making His Bones
I put my finger to my lips in a ssh motion, and Ford grabbed my arm to steer me down the counter. Tanner took up the silver flask to continue mixing booze.
“Seriously, buddy?”
“Well, I haven’t asked her yet, man. I guess I was sort of, well . . . “
“Waiting for our stamp of approval?”
I had to admit, he nailed it. Without the club’s approval, I’d be skulking around, doing club runs behind Elektra’s back. Afraid to bring them up, mention them, talk about anything they did or said. They were my friends as well as brothers in arms, and it was going to create a dual life if they were dead set against her. “Well, yeah.”
Ford shook me by the biceps. “I’ll tell you how to get around this, Gray. Simple as ABC. Claim her for your property.”
“Claim her for . . .?” I knew what that meant. But at the moment, I was so overwhelmed with battling emotions, I needed time to sort things out.
He bashed me openhanded on the shoulder. “Sure!” he said, like some kind of game show emcee. “You know what I mean. If Elektra is truly at one with our lifestyle, she’ll gladly accept your claim of her as your property.”
Of course I’d thought about it before. I knew that nearly all of the Bare Bones’ old ladies wore the infamous PROPERTY OF patch. The exception was Unity, who had married Tanner. She’d been raped for several years as a teen by her stepfather. She’d only stayed at home to protect her little sister. She did not want to be anyone’s property, no matter how symbolic, and I wondered if Elektra felt the same.
Still, I could ask.
“Yeah, I see what you mean, bro. I know she loves you guys. She doesn’t place herself above you on any sort of pedestal. She doesn’t frown on anything about your lifestyle.”
“Our lifestyles.”
I grinned and nodded. “Our lifestyles. But I’ll ask her if I can make her mine.”
“I know this year started with everything going tits up. It was pretty sketchy that Elektra contributed to Kneecap’s arrest. But, you know, we all came to like her, especially after Lytton told us about her bravery at the Pitchfork distillery. She obviously loves you, man. We couldn’t overlook that. True love is hard to come by. ‘The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough of is love.’”
“Man, you’re always so literary.”
“Not me. My favorite writer Henry Miller.”
Ford was a big reader. For another guy with such a shitty childhood, I’d always remember him with his ankles crossed, feet up, reading a book. Super handsome guys rarely had to stick their nose into a book, from my experience. And people thought I was well-read. Ford could’ve written a book himself.
I clapped him on the bicep. “It’s time for me to bag her, man. I don’t want anyone else getting some comfort from her.”
Ford quoted, “What’s a fuck when what I want is love?”
“You said it, brother.”
In the packed room, it wasn’t obvious that someone was tugging the hem of my cut. I had “patched in,” traded my PROSPECT patch for my full colors, and I no longer had to clean toilets. But the tugging became more urgent, and I turned to see little Tiago, who came about up to my shoulder.
“She’s here, papá!”
Tiago had taken to calling me “dad” lately. I didn’t mind. “Who? Elektra?”
“Mamá Elektra!”
“Go forward, young man,” said Ford with a smile in his voice, although I was already rudely pulling away from him.
The front door was locked against any potential customers, so I dove through the crowd toward the side door.
Elektra hadn’t even made it inside. Unity, Fox, Knoxie, and Bellamy had waylaid her by an old couch no one had succeeded in throwing away. She was so savage beautiful my heart surged in my chest. Even jet-lagged and burnt after testifying against Kneecap as she must have been, she was a smoke show. The other old ladies were gorgeous too in a movie casting sort of way, but I only had eyes for my Elektra, my scientist—my world.
“Babe!” I yelled, pretty much into Duji’s ear.
Duji flashed me an ungrateful frown, so I dodged him.
“Babe!” I shouted again, this time right into Faux Pas’ ear.
