Reaper's Fall

I glanced over at Jessica¸ wondering how our Friday afternoon had turned into a random drunkfest with two women I barely knew, because Kit and Emmy Hayes were a trip. Jess gave me a “don’t look at me” kind of shrug before draining her own glass of wine. I reached for some crackers off the little round cheese/meat platter thing Em had been carrying when she’d shown up at our house out of nowhere. (Kit had been in charge of booze.)

“Ha!” Em gloated, holding up the bottle triumphantly. “Suck it, Kit. Back to business—we have to figure out the perfect thing for London’s bachelorette party. So far we’ve got a night out dancing and surprise strippers.”

“I don’t think Reese is going to like her having strippers,” I mumbled, spraying crumbs because I’d forgotten about the cracker I’d just popped into my mouth. Ick. I grabbed my water glass, chugging. Liquid fire poured down my throat. I choked and then Jess was thumping my back while they all stared at me. Slowly I caught my breath, knowing my face must be beet red.

“That was straight vodka,” I gasped, staring down into the green plastic tumbler. I’d grabbed Kit’s cup instead of mine—obviously she wasn’t a water drinker.

“I know,” Kit said, nodding her head earnestly. “It’s more efficient that way.”

“So you’re chasing your vodka with wine?” Em asked.

“No, I’m chasing my wine with vodka,” Kit explained. “Saves time. Talking about Dad getting married again is creepy—the booze helps.”

I sat back in my chair, looking between the two sisters, pondering the situation. Jessica and I had just moved in here a week ago. Our new apartment was actually one side of an older, two-story house downtown. The place was falling apart, and sooner or later someone would tear it down and build something new and spectacular. Until then, it’d been divided into four apartments—two down in the basement and two splitting the house in half, town house–style.

I loved it.

We had a giant porch out front, and there was a door off the kitchen leading into a shady yard surrounded by trees. We’d found an old wooden wire spool by the Dumpster to use as a picnic table. That’s where we were now—clustered around it, sitting in old camp chairs. Handy, seeing as we didn’t have a table for the dining room yet. Maybe we’d bring this one inside when it got cold . . . Like our new home itself, we considered the table a total score. London—Jessica’s aunt, who’d raised her and taken me in, too—and her old man, Reese Hayes, insisted the place was a shithole.

Technically, they were probably right.

The house was a hundred years old at least, with peeling paint and a slant to the porch roof unsettling enough that I’d made a conscious decision not to think about it—especially since my bedroom (an old sleeping porch that’d been enclosed) perched on top of the rickety structure. The hot water worked only half the time, and it turned super cold if someone ran a faucet anywhere in the house during your shower. The walls were thin, so thin that they could hardly hold the tacks we used to put up posters, and the fridge made a creepy wheezing noise that sounded like the cold breath of a murderer in the night. (Not that I’d ever heard the cold breath of a murderer in the night, but I had a vivid imagination.)

It was still ours, though.

Our first real home as adults.

We had great neighbors for the most part, too. The other half of the house held three guys who went to North Idaho College, just like us. They were loud and rude, but so far they’d been willing to share the grill they kept on the porch, and they’d killed a snake for the girl who lived in one of the basement apartments. The second downstairs apartment held a guy who seemed a little sketchier than the rest of us. Jessica thought he might be a drug dealer. I hated to judge, but we’d been here a full week now and I’d never seen anyone have so much company coming and going late at night—there were cars pulling up for quick stops until two or three every morning.

We’d decided not to tell Reese—he’d probably kill the guy . . . well, unless he was on the Reapers MC payroll or something. Reese was the motorcycle club’s president, and I’d never fully pinned down what it was he did for a living.

Sometimes it’s best not to know.

Kit and Em were his daughters, and apparently now they were our new best friends. Jess had mentioned that they’d be in town—the Reapers were having some sort of big party for Labor Day, and people rode in from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana for the festivities. They’d even invited us, as London’s . . . what the hell were we, anyway?

Jessica was London’s niece, so that made her family. I’d been Jessica’s friend for years and London had half raised me, so I guess I was part of her family in some way, too.

There just wasn’t a quick and easy name for a configuration like ours, although that didn’t make it any less substantial. This really hit home when Loni asked me to be one of her bridesmaids. Now that she’d hooked up with the president of the Reapers motorcycle club, I was realizing that meant the whole club was somehow part of our larger world. I supposed under other circumstances, I might’ve even considered going out to the party. I couldn’t, though—Jess hated the clubhouse and she flat out refused to visit. Something bad had happened to her out there last year. I wasn’t entirely sure about the details, and I didn’t care, either. If she didn’t want to go, then I didn’t want to, either. We’d just stay home and get a leg up on our homework while they all partied. Or at least, that’d been the plan before Kit and Em and their booze showed up out of nowhere to talk bachelorette-party plans.