Center of Gravity (Marauders Book 3) Read online

  “Obviously,” Sisco deadpanned.

  “Bohm,” Brick continued without taking any notice of Sisco’s comment.

  There was another silence before Sisco cleared his throat and, in a very controlled way, asked, “As in ‘goes the bomb?’” And then they all started laughing.

  “There’s actually dots over the o in both last names, according to Chucky. Like in Motörhead,” Brick explained and dried his eyes while he still chuckled. “I’ll write it down for you, along with the other details I got on them.”

  “Thanks,” Mech smiled. “I think I’ll need it.”

  “I hope they have easily pronounced road names,” Bull mumbled while he shook his head and lit a smoke. Then he nodded towards Mitch. “Find out what you can about the biker situation in Europe, too. They’ll fill us in on it, I’m sure, but I want to know some of it before they come here. Don’t want to have to rely on their say-so on that shit.”

  “Sure.”

  “Does anyone know anything about the situation in Europe?” Mac the over-thinker asked. “Aren’t those mostly drunks on bikes, too? Like the Smiling Ghouls?”

  “From what I’ve heard, they’re insane,” Bull said. “Kind of like Australian bikers.”

  “We’ll hear them out,” Brick said, and Mitch knew that would be the end of the discussion for now. “No point in speculating about anything now. Might not lead to anything, but I want all the info you can find. Chucky and Dutch’ll come with them.”

  “Awesome, Dutch’ll come with the Dutch, that’s not confusing at all,” Dawg mumbled.

  The rest of the meeting was the usual stuff, and Mitch didn’t think much about a possible cooperation with the Dutch club, simply since it probably wouldn’t lead to anything. Suggestions like that one turned up now and then, and no one paid them much mind until it started to look real. They did all the background searches and found what they needed in case it took off, though. To be on the safe side.

  Once the meeting was over, he went to find Mac.

  “You sticking around?” he asked. Mac usually stuck around for a beer or two before heading home. Mitch hoped he might stay longer this time, since Vi was away. “Wanna head over to The Booty Bank, so you can see some non-fat chicks when you have the chance?” he added and wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Fuck you,” Mac laughed, but he knew Mitch was kidding about the non-fat chicks. “And no, I’m heading home. See you tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll check out some girls for you and describe them in detail.”

  “You do that.” Mac waved as he walked out.

  Mitch emptied his glass and turned around to see which girls had showed up for the night.

  -o0o-

  Two days later, Mitch was outside the clubhouse. The birthday weed-session with Mac had turned into a drinking session as well. They’d toasted the unborn boy with whiskey. They’d also called Vi and given a half crying, incoherent speech to the Squid. She wasn’t too happy about that and had told them to drink water and get their drunken asses to bed.

  He had a splitting headache and was resting on one of the picnic tables on the lot when he heard someone in high heels walking towards him.

  “Gotta ask you something,” Lisa said.

  He’d figured it was a sweetbutt and was a bit surprised when he heard her voice. He opened one eye to look at her.

  “Unless it’s a life and death thing, think it can wait? My brain isn’t really with me today.”

  “Yeah, Vi said you two called while pissdrunk yesterday,” she said, and he was pretty sure she was giving him an evil smile. “Are you still banging anyone who’s willing?”

  “Why? You offering?” he smirked. He knew she wasn’t, he just loved teasing her. Lisa was hot as hell, but she was like a sister to him. They were the same age and had been hanging out since they were around six, so it really would be like fucking a sister. “Cuz I’ve told you, like a million times, it would be so cute if the two brothers married the two sisters. Our moms would die of happiness.”

  “Oh, yeah, you stud, fuck me right now.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “I know.” That was definitely an evil smile. “But really, if she’s even remotely attractive, is that enough? I mean, are you still like when you were eighteen when it comes to that?”

  “Pretty much,” he shrugged. “As long as I think she’s hot, that’s fine. Why are you asking?”

  “Just worrying. I’m practically your house doctor, and I figured I should feign an interest.” She sat on the bench and leaned her elbows on the table next to his head. “How are things?”

  “Besides the hangover, just peachy.” He closed his eyes again. “And you?”

  “Good. Thinking about doing some research here in Phoenix.”

  “Really? Miss ‘LA is the best place on the planet’ is thinking about coming back to ol’ Arizona?”

  “Yup. I’ve been offered a spot on a project. It’s a good opportunity and what I want to work with. And I’d like to be closer to Vi when she has the kid.”

  Vi and Lisa hadn’t been all that close when they were younger, but they were getting there now, especially the last few years. Vi was working on a flower garden on Lisa’s back, and even if he’d never been allowed to see the entire thing, what he had seen had looked pretty fucking awesome.

  But Mitch didn’t think Vi having a baby was the only reason Lisa’d come home.

  “So you coming here wouldn’t have anything to do with you cutting off all your hair. Seem to remember that the last time you did that was when that asshole dumped you.”

  “That’s not it, not all of it, at least.” She swallowed. “Can I keep that talk in the bank?”

  “Yeah.” He stroked his hand over her hair. “It’s kinda cute.”

  “Thanks,” she smiled. “We’re gonna be the godparents, you know. Need to be close when you’re a godparent.”

  “At least I’ll kind of have a kid with you then,” he chuckled. “I’m guessing that’s as close as I’ll get.”

  “It is. Don’t pretend you’re sorry about it. You know we’d kill each other in a matter of months.”

  “We would,” he agreed. “Probably in a matter of hours. It would also be a bit pervy.”

  “Totally.”

  “Hey, your friend, by the way, how is she?”

  “Anna? Think she’s okay. Surprisingly okay, actually. I mean... she’s sad about it. Her entire family is all about ballet. Her dream was to become a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet. She used to talk about it when we were kids. Remember Mom saying that it probably wouldn’t happen, that you’d have to be crazy talented and lucky to get there.”

  “Your mom is such a positive woman.”

  Mel, his dad’s Old Lady, had been friends with Ella, Lisa and Vi’s mom. Once Bear and Ella got divorced, things the rest of them hadn’t known, or had only suspected, started to seep out. They’d seen that Ella didn’t get along with Vi, but it turned out she’d been mean to her, and Lisa still felt bad about that. She’d been her mom’s favorite, and she’d never defended Vi while they’d both lived at home. That was one of the things Mitch knew that the two of them needed to get over, and it was probably a good reason for Lisa to try to stay close for a while.

  “Not really,” Lisa agreed. She still got along with Ella, who also lived in LA, but she wasn’t as quick to defend her anymore. “It’s the best of the best, but she made it.”

  “She did?”

  “Yeah. She was a principal dancer for years, and then she got hit by a cab when she was trying to get to the ballet in time for a practice.”

  “Man, that’s gotta suck.”

  “No shit.”

  “So that cane, is she gonna be able to walk without it?”

  “Probably not. They don’t know. My guess would be not. There’s a lot of nerve damage and a lot of nerves that were severed close to the spine. They don’t usually grow out when it’s so far for them to grow, and I don’t know if th
ey managed to stitch them up. That doesn’t always work, but even if they did, I don’t think she’ll ever be fully healed.” It was always funny to Mitch to hear Lisa get into doc-mode. “But I think the fact that she’s so extremely disciplined by nature helps, especially with the physical therapy. Being on a rigid training program is pretty much her natural state.”

  “I bet.” He didn’t know much about ballet dancers, but he knew they had to train like maniacs, all the fucking time, so PT was probably nothing to a girl like her. “Poor chick.”

  “Are you really feeling sorry, or are you just planning on how you could turn it into a pity fuck?”

  “A little of both,” he admitted with a smile, mostly to himself. “But really, I do feel sorry for her. Bet she’s a pretty stable person though, disciplined and all that, she’ll be fine.”

  “Think so. Seems to have the right attitude.”

  “Does she speak Russian?”

  “No idea. Why?”

  “Sexy language.”

  In fact, he had a thing for girls who spoke any other language. Especially if it was their mother language because it was a special sense of achievement when you managed to fuck a girl so properly she forgot English and started to yell in a foreign language.

  “You’re really a dawg. I bet that’s why you never got a road name. ‘Dawg’ was already taken.”

  “Could be.” He looked up and noticed Lisa had a big smile. “So no prince charming around the corner for you then?”

  “No,” she shrugged. “Isn’t it annoying? With Vi and Mac, I mean.”

  “I know!”

  “She was eighteen, for chrissake, you don’t meet the love of you life when you’re eighteen!”

  “I’m with you.”

  “Her first boyfriend, and he’s.... so fucking nice!”

  “Very nice!”

  “They’re so... fucking...”

  “...Perfect.” Mitch agreed. They looked at each other and started to laugh. “Jealous?”

  “A little. And here they are.”

  Mitch turned his head and saw Mac and Vi coming towards them, so apparently Vi was home from the convention. She sat down on the bench next to her sister, shaking her head at him.

  “I leave my Old Man with you for a weekend, and he’s a wreck.”

  “Hey! I’m the impressionable baby brother, don’t blame me!” He turned to the side and put his hand on her bump. “How’s the squid?”

  “Fine. It’s awesome being pregnant, no one gets upset when I say I need a break, they run and get me anything I want. Think I’m gonna try to stay pregnant as much as possible for the coming years.”

  “Move over,” Mac muttered and lay down on the table next to him. “This is almost as bad as my bachelor party hangover.”

  Mitch laughed. That had been one of the best parties he’d ever been to. Admittedly his memory of the later hours of that night were a bit hazy, but he knew he’d had a good time. He also knew he’d pulled a ‘Dawg’ and had taken two girls with him to his room at the end of the night. He’d said it was to take the bullet for Mac, since he couldn’t fuck a stripper that night.

  As much as he teased his brother for keeping it in his pants, he’d be the first one having a go at him in the ring if he found out he’d been cheating on Vi. Then he’d hand him over to Bear.

  Mitch and Mac were on the table, and Vi and Lisa on the benches. It was at times like this he really wished he did have the hots for Lisa, because they made a great foursome. Wasn’t gonna happen, though. Lisa was high maintenance; he could sniff out one of those girls out in a second, and Mitch was not the kind of guy who could deal with a high maintenance girl.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Doctor’s Orders

  -o0o-

  The first thing I noticed when I woke up was always the stiffness and the beginnings of a dull pain on the inside of my lower leg. The most badly damaged nerve was the sciatic nerve, which lead to numbness and pain in that area—among other things. It obviously meant that those muscles weren’t working properly, and in the long run that could mean permanent stiffness, but I was trying to keep it at bay the best I could.

  I lay still and slowly started moving my foot, stretching as well as I could to just get some blood flow to the leg. Then I sat up and started to massage the thigh, slowly continuing down the leg. Once the stiffness started to subside, I started stretching while still massaging.

  Brett had given me a program to do each day, and I always did it. The full thing took about twenty minutes, but it didn’t bother me much, since I’d noticed that the days when I shortened it or didn’t do it properly, I had more pain and the leg worked even worse.

  Once I’d gone through the entire series, I picked up my cane and went into the bathroom for a pee and a shower.

  Irina was in the kitchen when I went in.

  “Morning, Zvezda,” she said as she handed me a cup of coffee. “Done with the exercises?”

  I nodded and smiled. That was actually a familiar question, and she’d asked it every morning since I was six. Before the accident, my exercises were done in the ballet room down the hall instead of in my bed, but I liked how she still asked.

  “Isn’t it your day off?” she asked, and I nodded again while taking my first sip of the coffee. I wasn’t working full time, mostly afternoons and nights. My boss, Richard, had told me it might be more later on, but there was no need for it yet. Irina continued, “Anything exciting going on today?”

  “Not really. PT and then I’m meeting Lisa.”

  “That sounds pretty exciting to me,” Irina smiled, and then she sighed. “At least sounds a lot more exciting than my day.”

  I was about to ask her what she meant, but she waved her hand and chugged down her coffee on her way towards her bedroom, so I assumed she was getting late. I looked at the overfull kitchen table with a smile. Time for breakfast—a big one! In general, I was starting to really see the perks about not being on a rigid schedule and diet. But I still missed dancing. Every day.

  -o0o-

  Since seeing her at the clubhouse, three months earlier, Lisa had moved to Greenville. She was working on a research project about antibiotics in Phoenix, and we met quite often. It was fun—when she didn’t give long speeches about resistant diseases and their effects. She had a tendency to slip into her interests in that way. That was something she’d done even when we were young. She’d always been curious about stuff and eager to learn everything. Back then she’d argued that it was one of the reasons she got along so well with Mitchell Baxter, but I frankly had a hard time seeing him as being curious about anything but the insides of girls’ panties.

  Another thing I liked about Lisa was that she wasn’t tiptoeing around me—about anything. She was one of few people who asked me about dancing and if I missed it. I still avoided the topic, but it was nice to know that when I was ready for it, I’d be able to talk to her. She wouldn’t ignore it or tell me to forget about it, to not dwell on it, or anything like that; she’d let me talk and she’d listen. She poked in other areas as well. Which was what she was doing while we were having coffee at a small local diner.

  “Seriously?” she asked with her sandwich still halfway to her mouth. “Before the accident?”

  “My body had to heal and... stuff,” I tried.

  “Honey, that might’ve been true the first six months, maybe eight, but still. How long before the accident?” She looked at me, and I tried to avoid meeting her stare. “No bullshit, Anna. How long?”

  “Six months maybe.”

  “Jesus! Are you telling me you haven’t had dick in, like, two years?”

  “Oh, wow! Thank you! Say that a little louder, I’m not sure the guy in the bathroom heard you.”

  “Well good, maybe he can come out and take you back there for a proper fuck.” She did lower her voice a little, though. “But really!”

  “I was doing a lot of big roles just before and… I don’t know. I guess I was busy. Besides, the guys at the bal
let are quite often not on the market.”

  “Gays?”

  “Yes.”

  “And outside the ballet?” she asked, and I looked at her with a lifted eyebrow. “You didn’t meet people outside the ballet?”

  The closest I’ve ever been to be able to explain to others what life in a ballet company was like, was to compare it with going into a convent. I went to live at the school when I was fourteen, and I’d been living and breathing dance every single day since then. Once school was over, I’d moved into an apartment with two other dancers. It wasn’t as if I was a virgin, and I’d been in relationships, too. I’d even tried it twice with people outside the ballet, but that hadn’t even been close to working. The only truly serious thing had been with a fellow dancer, but he’d gotten an offer at a ballet company in Paris, and I had fully understood when he left. I would’ve done the same if I had been in his situation and had received the same offer.

  “Lisa,” I started and then just… tried to explain what it was like. “Training started at half past ten every day. At twelve there were rehearsals for six hours and then the performance. I didn’t really meet a lot of people outside the ballet. Just when we had drinks with people who supported the theater and things like that.”

  “Wow. You must be dying for some dick.”

  “Sure.” I cleared my throat.

  “Okay, baby, I saw that.” And when I looked at her, she was pointing her finger at me. “What was that? You’re not dying for dick, why?”

  “Lisa—”

  “Are you gay? I’d be okay with it, you know. Wouldn’t be able to help you since I’m really not. Kind of wish I was—I really like boobs.”

  “I’m not gay!”

  “Then what?” She stared at me, and I could see when she figured it out. “Honey,” she said in a low voice. “You know it’s not gonna matter.”

  When we were kids, we talked about our bodies a lot, like most girls did. Lisa was beautiful, stunningly so, and she had a lot of curves in all the right places—as a man would put it. I looked like most dancers did, but at the same time we’d always had very different approaches to our bodies.