Later, I followed her around the house, helping her clean and burning in embarrassment when she opened my closet full of dirty laundry and gave me an equally dirty look before scooping it into her arms.

“This is disgraceful, Callie!” she told me with a disgusted sniff, dropping the laundry in the middle of my bedroom floor.

“I was in a hurry!” I griped back.

“I’m gonna make you a list,” she huffed as she stripped the sheets off my bed. “Things you have to do every day, things you need to do twice a week, and things you can get by with doing only once a week. You follow my list and you won’t have to live in a pit.”

“It’s not a pit!” I argued, my hands on my hips as I watched her wrestle with my comforter.

“It’s a pit.”

I helped Gram remake my bed before we headed out for dinner with her grumbling that she was too tired to cook. I felt like shit that she’d driven all day and then cleaned my house all afternoon, but I also knew that she’d loved it. She lived to take care of her kids, and in a weird way I think my living in a pigsty made her feel validated. I really did need her—at least to help me clean up my shit.

After we curled up in bed that night, on sheets fresh out of their packaging, we talked for hours about everything and nothing. I fell asleep as she ran her fingers through my hair and spoke about the latest drama in her trailer park. I didn’t have nightmares at all that night.

Gram’s visit was over before we knew it, and I had to say goodbye once again. She was able to stay with me for nine days, and it had been blissful having her there when I got home from school each day. She’d brought up garbage bags full of my clothes, four loaves of freshly baked banana bread, and an entire box full of homemade jams and canned fruits with her. It was like heaven having all of it at my disposal.

But the best part of having her there was just… her. She made me feel like a kid again, and I soaked it up like a sponge.

While we were having our visit, Asa only called twice. He didn’t even seem to notice that something was off—but he still told me that he’d let me have time with Gram without “interruptions”. I wasn’t sure if he was being thoughtful, or if he was grateful he didn’t have to babysit me long distance. I was able to ignore the feeling nagging in my gut that something was off while Gram was there, but it seemed as if the minute she left for San Diego I was hit with a massive force of anxiety.

Why wasn’t he calling?

Chapter 32

Grease

When I left Callie in Sacramento, I was anxious as fuck to get away from her. I’d wanted her dependent on me, and I loved the fact that she looked at me like she needed me… but the reality of that was a little more than I could handle. Part of me had wanted to stay with her and take care of her, and the other part of me wanted to just get back to where my fucking world made sense.

By the time I’d pulled up to the club, I was fucking beat. I barely said hello to the boys before slamming into my room and passing out on the bed. I didn’t want to move for at least twenty-four hours.

The next day, Slider called me into his office to get a rundown on the nonsense down in San Diego, and I had to wait through his ranting and raving before I could try and explain. I knew Poet had already called him, and he was just trying to make a point, but I still walked him through the entire episode. I thought his head was going to explode when I told him about Jose trying to fuck us over, and when I described the Jimenez boys showing up at Rose’s I saw a vein on his temple throbbing above his clenched jaw. He was pissed.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful until Callie went radio silent on Friday night. Since I’d arrived at the club on Monday, I’d been giving her a call every night, but doing whatever the fuck I wanted the rest of the time. I wasn’t going on any runs, and the mechanic shop we ran as a legitimate business was pretty dead, so I didn’t have a lot of work to do.

I was enjoying my freedom, barely thinking about Callie at all, when I called her phone Friday night and she didn’t answer. There were a shit ton of people at the clubhouse that night, so I got distracted for a while, waiting for her to call back, but about an hour later I realized I still hadn’t talked to her.

I spent the rest of that night pacing my room like a pussy, getting angrier and angrier that she hadn’t answered her phone or called me back. It was like as soon as I couldn’t get a hold of her I missed her like hell on fire.

At one point, I even called the boys down in Sac to drive by her house and make sure her car was there. Knowing that it was didn’t seem to make a difference because my saddlebags were packed and ready before Slider pulled me aside and told me to suck it the fuck up.

They’d been watching me lose it the entire night, and they were all laughing at what they called my ‘hysterics’. Fucking pricks. I knew that if it were Vera who wasn’t answering her phone, Slider would be climbing the walls or already halfway to Sacramento by then.

When I finally got a hold of her, I was pissed as hell. If I had been in the same room as her, I don’t know what I would have done.

She calmed me down with that sweet voice of hers, but when she told me she was having trouble sleeping, my anger disappeared. I wanted to make it better for her, but I wasn’t sure how. She wasn’t willing to move where I was, and I sure as shit wasn’t going down to the Sacramento Chapter and leaving all my brothers behind.

Our options were pretty much nonexistent because of her stubbornness, and when I got off the phone, my frustration over being away from her—turned into being frustrated at her.