Wed to the Bad Boy(68)

She took my head in her hand and kissed my hair. “You’ll be fine, honey. You’re a brave girl.”

I didn’t feel brave, but I knew I had to be. Taking a deep breath, I followed her.

My throat constricted. My legs were shaking with every step I took. It took all my strength just to keep moving. I didn’t want to look at my brother one last time. I didn’t want to see his body lying there, devoid of everything that had made him, him. The cold, lifeless body on display in that coffin would be a stranger.

I already knew it all. I had been here before, done this.

The memories stopped me in my tracks.

To my relief, Donna didn’t say anything. She just hovered near, smiling absently at the members who passed by. She let me remember. So I could go forward again with some dignity.

I didn’t want to see my brother’s corpse.

I wanted to remember Sean as a reckless, goofy boy. The way he was when we were kids, when he was my strongest protector and my greatest antagonist.

A deep voice broke through my churning thoughts. “Donna, who the hell is that?” A figure stormed toward us. He was glaring at me, ready to toss me out on my ass. “And how the hell did you get access to the back?”

Already lost in a swell of emotions, I nearly threw up when I saw the owner of that voice. I knew him instantly, and yet I didn’t know him at all.

He was the boy I’d grown up next to, raised together in the club. The one I’d instantly loved in the way a seven-year-old did once they’d decided they actually did like boys. This boy had trumped them all for me back then, had dominated my thoughts in the same way I’d want him to dominate my body years and years later. That kind of crush never really fades.

I’d never really gotten over Cullen McFadden.

And here he was charging at me like I was some kind of intruder. His intense blue eyes were staring me down, challenging me. He didn’t recognize me.

That made me angry. “I’ve been running through this clubhouse ever since I was a little girl,” I snapped. “I’d better know how to get in.” . It was easier to face him than the body - in the next room. And anger was easier to stomach than grief. “I don’t need to be chased down and threatened by the likes of you, Cullen McFadden. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, the last thing I need is you acting like you can come in and start telling me what to do.”

I don’t know where it came from, but suddenly I was my mother on one of her tirades when my brother and his friend were teenagers—in the moments when she wasn’t drunk or high. My voice sounded just like hers I wish I could say I was proud of the likeness.

“Lala?” he managed, the surprise obvious.

I hate that stupid nickname. I crossed my arms and glared.

“Layla. I go by Layla now.”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to do, because a slow smile crept over his face. The kind he used to give me when we were kids, when he would patronize me while I prattled on about something he couldn’t have given two shits about. The kind that drove me crazy.

It was his first smile in days, probably.

Suddenly, I remembered why I was here.

I swallowed. Hard.

“I’m glad you came. Sean would have wanted you here.” Cullen was larger than life, not the scrawny kid I’d known once upon a time. I realized his true size as he came closer to me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and pulling me into the crowd.

I breathed in deep. The leather of his cut a familiar smell brought back so many memories. Like when he’d held me close for hours the day my dad died, all while wearing the cut, no patches, back when he was just a prospect for the club. Before that, it was his leather jacket. I looked at that cut, at a patch on it that read, “Vice President.”

How the hell did that happen?

His touch made me forget about the hesitation, about my body’s insistence not to move. I let him lead me through the room. As we went, I glanced over at the faces I didn’t know, or at least didn’t remember while Aunt Donna introduced me to extended family and club family. It was hard not to get lost in this crowd, but it made it easier not to look over. At Sean.

He was in the casket on the dais. Like when my father was taken. I remembered his body lying there on the same pedestal, his body pale and lifeless, while my brother and I stood near.

By then, my mother was already gone. Uncle Mick had held us both close while Aunt Donna doted on me. Like she was doing today.

I hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone that day. I had just cried.

The next day, I left for my other aunt’s, the one on my mother’s side. Sean stayed in Pittsburg, of course. He had been seventeen and ready to start in on the “family business,” but not me. I had been done.