Gravel's Road (3 page)

Chapter 3

Gravel

“Wake up, old man. I’m not carrying your ass.” I heard King growl at me.

I opened my eyes to see Ethel and Meg standing at the door, hugging goodbye and Remy with his nose still in his phone. I swear that fucking thing was attached to that kid’s hand.

King was standing over me, a huge fucking grin on his face. Asshole was enjoying this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had fallen asleep before eleven o’clock. I glanced at the clock on the fireplace mantel and saw it was only ten.

“You’ve been out for two hours. Haul your ass to bed. Meg, the kid, and I are heading home. I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Yeah. Sounds good,” I said groggily. I sat forward, my ass on the edge of the couch, my elbows on my knees and ran my fingers through my hair. I could barely tie it back, so I had just been leaving it down.

“Bye, Gravel,” Meg called from the door.

“Night, darlin’,” I said as she walked out the door. Remy threw a wave at me and followed his mom, with King following right behind.

“You need to take some more medicine,” Ethel said as she shut the door and threw the lock shut.

“It’s in my bag.” I went to stand up and fell back into the couch as pain shot through the shoulder and down my arm and back.

“Are you ok?” Ethel asked as she sprinted over and kneeled down in front of me.

“I’m good, I just stood up too fast,” I grimaced as another wave of pain went through me.

“Stay here, I’ll get your pills. You should probably stay on the couch until they kick in,” she said as she got up and headed down the hall.

She was back in a minute and headed into the kitchen where I heard the water run and then she was back at my side. “Here,” she said as she held out the pills and glass of water.

I tossed the pills in my mouth and washed them down with a slug of water. “I think I’ll just sleep on the couch tonight,” I said as I laid my head back, closing my eyes.

“Are you sure?” Ethel asked concerned.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine by morning,” I muttered. My shoulder was fucking killing me.

“Ok. Well, I’ll leave my door open. Just holler if you need anything,” she insisted.

“I will, darlin’. I’ll see you in the morning.” I heard Ethel walk away. I closed my eyes and listened as she moved through the house turning off lights and locking doors. I heard her walk down the hall and her door clicking open.

“You’re going to need a blanket.” I jumped up at the sound of Ethel’s voice right next to me and immediately regretted it.

“Son of a bitch,” I roared. The pain was like a spider web that covered my arm and back. It was ridiculous how much it hurt.

“Crap, sorry,” she said meekly as she laid the blanket down over my legs.

I slowly laid back down, careful of my shoulder and looked at Ethel. “Not your fault, darling. I thought you had headed to bed,” I explained.

“Sorry,’ she repeated. ‘I just thought you might get cold.”

“It’s ok. Thanks.” I grabbed the blanket and awkwardly laid it over myself.

Ethel grabbed the blanket out of my hand and tossed it over me. “Night,” she murmured and hightailed it back to her room. I watched her retreating and saw her duck into her room. The light flicked on, and she partially closed the door, a sliver of light shining into the hallway.

I laid back down and shut my eyes, willing myself to sleep. It took a long fucking time for sleep to come.

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Chapter 4

Ethel

I quietly poured coffee in my cup, followed by creamer and sugar and headed down the hallway. I ducked into Gravel’s room and shut the door behind me.

Sliding the glass door open, I slipped out and sat down in my favorite chair. I had planned to change my routine, but with Gravel sleeping on the couch, I couldn’t have my coffee in the kitchen without worrying about waking him up. So I was able to still carry on with my old routine.

It had taken me a long time to fall asleep last night. I had even turned on some music, played my favorite Fleetwood Mac songs and read my favorite Diana Palmer book, but nothing helped to calm me down.

I had given up on reading and listening to music when I realized I was daydreaming more than reading. I had finally fallen into a fitful sleep around two o’clock and then I was up again at eight.

Sipping on my coffee, I listened to the world come to life. I loved this time of day. I generally woke up around six and was able to watch the sun light up my sleepy backyard.

“You got room for one more out here?” Gravel rumbled, making me squeak in surprise and almost spill my coffee.

My head snapped to the sliding door and watched Gravel maneuver through the door and sit in the other patio chair I had kitty-corner to mine.

“Did I wake you?” I asked, concerned I had been too loud as I had gotten my coffee.

“No, darling. I didn’t even hear you in there,” he said as he stretched his legs out in front of him, getting comfortable.

“The shoulder feeling better today?” I asked.

“Stiff and sore, but I can at least walk without doubling over in pain. I guess that’s something to be happy about,” he stated.

“Did you want some coffee?” I asked, not knowing if Gravel even drank coffee.

“I’ll get some in a bit when I grab some breakfast.”

“Ok,” I mumbled as I took a sip, inhaling the delicious smell of the Irish cream creamer I used.

“Why didn’t you come and see me in the hospital?” He asked, completely catching me off guard.

I choked on the sip of coffee I had just taken and almost hacked up a lung. Gravel just watched me, waiting for an answer.

“Um, I wasn’t sure if you wanted me there,” I replied.

“I told King to call you before they even had me loaded in the ambulance. He had to have said that.” Gravel informed me.

“He did,” I confessed.

“So what would make you think that I wouldn’t want you there?”

“Because you haven’t wanted me around in the past, I didn’t know what was different, other than the fact you needed someone to take care of you. Who else to call besides me? I didn’t want to be used and thrown away,” I responded, more truthful than I had planned to.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want you around, Ethel.”

“Then what was it?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer, but I needed
to hear it.

“You were married,” he said as though that explained everything.

“When we first me? Of course I was.” Henry and I had been married for twenty-seven years before he passed away. I loved him till the day he died. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t feel the pull to Gravel when I had first met him.

“And that was what the problem was. I was wild and crazy back then, but I knew not to poach another man’s woman. That was something I could never have done,” he said.

“So what you are saying is you wanted me that first time you had seen me but couldn’t have me, so you decided you never wanted me then.”

“We live different lives, Ethel.”

“So do Meg and Lo. Do you see that stopping them?” I shot back.

“They’re different. They are young enough to change and accept new things. We’re both set in our ways and know how life is. We’re not meant to be together.”

I sat back in my chair and gazed out into the woods. I guess I just got my answer if Gravel and I could be together. I wanted it, but it would never be if Gravel had already made up his mind. “I guess that settles that then,” I quietly said as I stood up and made my way to the door.

Gravel grabbed my hand and stopped me. “Don’t leave, Ethel. I’m sorry. I just don’t want to see either of us get hurt.”

I threw my head back and laughed. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Gravel. I’ve known for a long time you have a heart of stone. I’m a big girl; I can take a hint. Breakfast will be ready in half an hour,” I spat and walked back into the house. I turned around and slammed the door shut, well as much as one can slam a sliding door.

I stalked to the kitchen and started grabbing eggs and bacon out of the fridge, fuming. What an ass. He didn’t want to hurt me, so he stayed away. Well, news flash, staying away did not keep me from thinking of him. If anything it made me think of the stubborn old man even more.

Gravel thinking he needed to stay away from me, even now, was ridiculous. Henry had been gone for over ten years. I had been single longer than I had been married the whole time I had known him.

I grabbed the cast iron skillet out from under the cabinet and slammed it down on the stove. He didn’t want me, thought we were too old to be together. Well, he may think he was too old, but I wasn’t. I was fifty-eight, not dead.

He acted like a young buck in front of all the brothers of the club, but he plays the ‘we’re too old to change’ card on me? More like he couldn’t keep it in his pants and he had to think of some lame excuse.

Well, he didn’t want me, so he wasn’t going to have me. You can only be put off for so long before you just give up.

I just gave up.

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Gravel

Shit. I was pretty sure I had just pissed Ethel the fuck off. I leaned back in my chair and looked up at the sky.

I was trying to save Ethel from being hurt. I didn’t know if I had it in me to settle down. I had been out on my own for so long; I didn’t know if I wanted to be tied down.

I had been married a long time ago for a short while, and the only good thing that had come out of it had been Marley. I had married Alice when I was twenty-eight. I had thought back then that I was ready to be a family man and settle. I was wrong. Well, mostly I had married the wrong person. The Alice I had proposed to and the Alice who walked into our new apartment after we got married were two very different people. Not even before the ink dried on the marriage license Alice was on me to get a ‘normal’ job. Her nagging had lasted about two weeks before I shut her down. I told her the club was the life I had chosen and if she wasn’t down with it anymore to not let the door hit her in the ass on the way out.

She laid off of me, and things got better, at least for a little bit.

Two months into the marriage Alice got pregnant, and she hopped back on the bandwagon of the normal job bullshit. I stuck around till Marley was six months but couldn’t do it anymore. I left. Moved back into the clubhouse and saw Marley every chance I could. That was until Alice decided she was going to go out to California to live with her sister. Alice and Marley took off and the only time I heard from Alice was when she needed money for Marley.

I sent it every time. I couldn’t be there physically for Marley, so I figured money was the next best thing.

Money in exchange for never seeing your dad worked until Marley hit about thirteen and stopped talking to me. Her mother still called for money, but it was rare that Marley spoke to me. My visits out west became few and far between, until Marley and I drifted apart and I struggled to find anything to say.

Last I knew she was still lived in California and was a hairdresser.

Alice was the exact reason Ethel and I wouldn’t work. I wasn’t meant to be tied down. Plain and simple.

The sooner Ethel realized that, the better off we would be.

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Chapter 5

Ethel

“Who the hell makes a doctor’s appointment for eight o’clock in the goddamn morning?” Troy grumbled as he walked through the front door and headed straight for the coffee pot.

“Rough night at work?” I asked as I sat at the kitchen table and sipped on my cup of coffee.

“You could say that again. I lost count after ten how many trucks Meg and I loaded last night. Don’t even get me started on everyone in production needing shit from us. The night from hell is more like it.” Troy replied as he filled his cup and sat down at the table with me.

“I could have taken Gravel to the doctor. You could have called and told me you had a rough night,” I offered.

“It’s fine. I’ll just crash when I get home. This shouldn’t take long,’ Troy said, grabbing a homemade scone off the platter in the middle of the table. I had woken up at five thirty and hadn’t been able to go back to sleep. After tossing and turning for half an hour, I got up and made strawberries and cream scones. ‘How’s the ass been treating you?” Troy asked around a mouthful of scone.

“He mostly keeps to himself. I change his bandage every day, and we eat together and then he stays in his room the rest of the time,” I replied, finishing off my coffee.

“King was telling me Gravel calls him about ten times a day with shit about the strip club they are setting up. They just bought a place on the outskirts of town.”

“Why the hell do you know Knight’s business?” Gravel boomed as he walked into the kitchen.

“Hey, King told me,” Troy said holding his hands.

Gravel grunted, walked to the coffee pot and filled the travel mug I had pulled down for him.

“You ready to go, old man?” Troy asked.

“Fuck off,” Gravel grumbled as he snapped the lid on his cup and headed out the door.

“This should be interesting,” Troy said as he got up and dropped his cup in the sink and followed Gravel.

“Have fun!” I called, silently laughing to myself.

Gravel had been a downright bear the last week. We managed to avoid each other for the most part. Whenever we sat down to eat, it was a tense twenty minutes of neither of us talking, and Gravel mumbling thank you and headed back to his room.

Every afternoon I would sit on the front porch with a glass of tea and a book, and I would hear Gravel rumbling into the phone talking to god knows who from the side of the house. Late at night I would hear him pacing around, unable to sleep. I asked a couple of days ago if he was having trouble sleeping, and all he did was slam his coffee cup down and storm down the hall and slam his bedroom door shut.

I had no idea what his problem was. He was the one who had told me there was no chance between the two of us; I should have been the one acting all bent out of shape.

I grabbed my empty cup and set it in the sink. I leaned over to my radio and turned it on, sliding in my Fleetwood Mac cd. The opening chords of “The Chain” started playing, and I leaned against the sink, crossing my arms over my chest.

Gravel. That man had somehow worked his way into my life and house the past week, even with him barely talking to me. I tried those first couple of days to act like nothing changed. But it’s hard to talk to someone when every time you said something they stomped out of the room and didn’t come out for hours.

I turned around, cranking up the music trying to drown out my thoughts. I grabbed my book and headed out to the front porch, with every intention of not thinking of Gravel for at least the next hour.

Hopefully.

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Gravel

“Would you watch the fucking bumps?!” I bellowed as a wave of pain shot through my arm.

The doctor had poked and prodded, making sure everything looked ok and had irritated the fuck out of my shoulder. He said it was healing well, and I should be back to normal in a couple of weeks.

“You ever drove down these streets before? The whole fucking road is a bump,” Troy shot back at me as he swerved to avoid a pothole and ended up hitting another one.

“Just get me the fuck home. I forgot to bring my pills,” I gripped. All I wanted to do was get home and pass the fuck out.

“You giving Ethel a hard time?” Troy asked. Where the hell did that question come from?

“Pretty sure that isn’t any of your fucking business.”

“She’s a good woman. If I were twenty years older, I would be stealing her away from you.”

“She isn’t mine, dickwad,” I growled.

“And why they hell isn’t she?”

“What the fuck? Are you fucking Dr. Phil now?” I was two seconds away from punching his fucking lights out.

“Meg talked to me last night. Wanted me to see where you were on the whole Ethel front.”

“That’s a fucked up question. I’ll answer that when you tell me what the fuck is between you and Meg. There is no fucking way you are just in it for friendship,” I prodded, trying to get the damn attention off of me.

“Huh! There isn’t a damn thing between Meg and me. I’ve known her since before she got divorced, we’re friends. That’s all we’ll ever be. She loves King, and I love beer. End of story,” Troy revealed, throwing his head back and laughed.

“I don’t believe it,” I mumbled.

“Doesn’t matter if you don’t believe it. Now, tell me what the fuck is between you and Ethel.”

“You’re not going to let this shit drop, are you?” I grumbled as I stared out the window.

“Not a fucking chance,” Troy said.

“I’m not good enough for her,” I mused. Ethel was the kind of woman you came home to every night, not one you left to go out on a run or bring to the clubhouse to drink and mess around with.

“You’re right about that, but I think that’s something you should let her decide,” Troy mused as he pulled into her driveway and threw the truck into park.

“There’s a lot you don’t fucking know,” I said as I unbuckled my seat belt and threw the door open.

“It doesn’t matter what I do and don’t know. You getting so bent out of shape over me just mentioning Ethel speaks for itself.”

“It speaks nothing,” I said as I slid out of the truck and slammed the door behind me. Troy backed out of the driveway and took off.

“Did you have lunch?” Ethel asked as I walked up the steps.

“Having lunch would have meant spending more time with Cowboy. Not on my list of things I enjoy,” I said as I sat down next to her.

“I can make you a sandwich if you want,” she offered.

“In a little bit. I need to get some of my pills.” I said as I leaned forward to get up.

“I can grab them,” she said as she stood up and walked into the house.

I heard her music playing through the windows and smiled. Ethel loved her music. I noticed she played Fleetwood Mac a lot, normally when she was in a good mood.

“Fleetwood Mac, darlin’?” I asked as she walked back out the door, the screen door slamming shut behind her and she handed me two pills and a glass of water.

“Nothing beats Stevie Nicks,” she said with a smile and sat back down next to me.

We sat in silence listening to the music. “You actually want to be by me now?” She asked, staring down the driveway.

“I don’t know, Ethel,” I confessed. I was so fucking confused. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore.

She threw her head back and laughed. “You don’t know if you want to be by me?”

“I’m not what you need, Ethel. I’m not the kind of guy who can sit at home and just chill. I like being part of the club, and taking off on runs. You need someone who’s here when you need them.”

“Ok, I don’t agree, but how about this?’ She said as she turned in her chair to face me. ‘Can you at least be my god damn friend? I understand you don’t see me as someone you want to be with, but can you at least act like you like being in the same room as me?” She sneered.

“You’ve got it all wrong, Ethel,” I said, shaking my head.

“I have an idea,” she said, a smile spreading across her lips.

“By that smile on your face, I’m not sure I’m going to like this idea.” I chuckled.

“We forget everything. Clean slate.”

“What do you mean, clean slate?”

“Well, all the things you think you know about me and all the reasons you think you can’t be my friend, forget,” she replied.

I looked at her, her emerald green eyes shining back at me. “If I’m supposed to forget about that, what are you going to forget about?”

“How much of an ass you’ve been to me this past year,” she smiled.

“I can’t guarantee I’ll never be an ass.” I chuckled.

“Dually noted. So, do we have a deal? A new start, right here, right now,” she said as she held her hand out to me.

I looked down at her hand, wondering if this was a good idea. “Friends, that’s all I can guarantee,” I reinforced.

“Friends,” she promised.

We shook hands, and I’m pretty sure I had no idea what I just agreed to.

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