Heavy Hogs MC

by Elias Taylor

  That brief moment was enough to see a naked girl beside him. That was fine. That happened often enough, and this was Vegas. Brent always let loose in Vegas—

  Loose enough to have sex with Gideon’s sister?

  Brent shot straight up in bed. His head pulsed uncomfortably for more than one reason as he watched Natalie’s back rise and fall slowly with her breathing. It was an incredibly attractive back, but now that the alcohol was out of his system, Brent wasn’t so hasty to admit that.

  “God,” he groaned, but very quietly, not wanting to wake up Natalie.

  “Ugh,” he added just as quietly, eyeing the array of half-eaten food they had left on the floor overnight and the mess they made of the room.

  Carefully and quietly, Brent disentangled himself from the layers of sheets and blankets. Hotel staff always tucked all the layers of bedding underneath the mattress, but Brent and Natalie had managed to make a real mess of that former neatness.

  Brent threw away most of the food, saving an extra piece of cheesecake that hadn’t gotten squished. He slipped into his black pants and grabbed his two soiled shirts off the floor. He returned to his own room to toss them into a corner, grabbed a new shirt and a pair of comfortable slides and headed back into the hall to go downstairs and round up some breakfast for both him and Natalie. It was the least he could do after dragging her into such a crazy night, although it was really her fault just as much as his.

  How much did we drink? Brent tried to tally all the beers, shots and glasses of champagne, but at some point he had stopped paying attention to what he consumed.

  Sex with Natalie, though—he remembered every second of that. He remembered how she felt inside, better than he could ever have imagined—not that he had ever imagined anything like this until yesterday. Natalie had always been pretty in his mind, but her attitude would have turned him off even if she hadn’t been Gideon’s sister and he hadn’t known her forever.

  It doesn’t mean anything, Brent reminded himself, walking straight past the elevator to slap his way down the stairs in a weak effort at a little morning exercise. We were drunk. Really drunk. Shit happens.

  “Brent!” Footsteps jogged toward him from behind.

  Brent thanked his lucky stars that his back had been turned to Gideon so he could spend a second composing his face. He resisted the urge to reach up and fix his hair, figuring that would be more suspicious than having a case of bed-head.

  “Hey, Gideon.”

  “Hey.” Gideon took in Brent’s appearance. “Good night?”

  “You could say that.” Brent’s already churning stomach jumped uncomfortably.

  “Have you seen Natalie? She’s big on breakfast so I figured I would see her downstairs, but she’s not there.”

  “Uh... I haven’t seen her today. We went to that festival yesterday afternoon and ended up splitting up.”

  Gideon plunged a hand into his pocket and removed his phone. “I’ll just give her a call. She probably partied a bit too hard.”

  Brent’s stomach was going to fall right out of his body if it kept up these acrobatics.

  “Hey, I think we’re going to try to all go out for lunch together. I’ll let you know what the plan is later.” Without waiting for Brent to say anything, Gideon walked off toward the elevators.

  Brent waited until the metal doors closed safely behind Gideon before letting out a gusty sigh of relief. He continued his mission to collect breakfast, even more determined now that he knew Natalie liked breakfast, and grabbed enough food to earn him some funny looks.

  When he got back to Natalie’s room, he had to swipe the keycard he took before leaving and then hold it in his teeth while he shouldered the door open with his arms full of breakfast foods.

  “Oh. Good morning,” he said when he turned to fully face the room and realized that Natalie was sitting wide awake and fully dressed on the corner of the soiled bed.

  She stared at him with open hostility. “‘Good morning’? That’s all you’ve got after last night?”

  “Yeah?” Brent set down the food on one of the tables he had already cleared of the evidence of their wild night. “Is it not?”

  “Brent, we—oh my God.” Natalie buried her head in her hands.

  Brent went into comforting mode when he realized how upset she actually was about this. “Hey, it’s fine. I ran into Gideon, and he doesn’t suspect anything.”

  “Of course he doesn’t.” Natalie launched herself out of bed and began to pace restlessly. “I don’t even know how this happened.”

  “Alcohol,” Brent offered. Her glare told him that he wasn’t being helpful. “Look, relax. This is Las Vegas. This can’t be the craziest thing that’s happened to you in this city.”

  Natalie opened her mouth to argue, but stopped short. “Well...”

  “Exactly. We’re both adults, we drank too much alcohol and we had some fun, end of story. It’s no one elses’ business. Except for our super-sick dance moves at the ceremony,” Brent added. “And this cool official document we’ll be getting in the mail.”

  Natalie managed a chuckle at that. “That was pretty awesome.”

  “Exactly. Here.” Brent pulled the sheets off the bed and stripped it down to the very bottom sheet, which had somehow avoided the activities that occured on the layers above it. He laid out all the breakfast foods he had brought to the room and sat down carefully. “I have it on good authority that you like breakfast, so help me out with this food so we can figure out what Vegas Trip Day Two is going to look like.”

  “I do like breakfast,” Natalie admitted, sitting on the bed as well. “Breakfast then shower then city-exploring?”

  “Sounds good. Maybe Gideon will even hang with us this time.”

  They chuckled, tucking into the spread of tasty hotel breakfast, at ease with each other and the knowledge that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

  Chapter Seven: Natalie

  Natalie swayed her hips to the beat of the music, dancing her way from the stove to the sink with a frying pan in her hands. Scrubbing became a part of that dance and got her whole body moving, and she reached over to give her phone a couple taps to turn up the volume.

  Something touched Natalie’s shoulder. She dropped the pan into the sink with a shriek and spun around to end up face to face with her best friend Jasmine Trudeau.

  “Ugh, don’t do that!” Natalie turned the music down.

  Jasmine raised her hands apologetically. “Sorry! I said your name like three times but you were in here jamming out.”

  “Yeah, I know. Sorry.” Natalie should blame herself for her brief scare. She and Jasmine had made plans to hang out Saturday afternoon even before Natalie had gone to Vegas two weeks ago.

  “So what’s got you so jumpy?” Jasmine asked, picking one of the three barstool seats Natalie had bought a year ago when she moved into this house.

  Natalie turned back to the running water and flicked some at her friend. “You. I invited you over for lunch, not to kill my vibe.”

  “Sowwy. Look I’ll help with lunch. What are we eating?”

  “Sandwiches, but fancy sandwiches.”

  “Ooh.”

  The girls joked back and forth while Natalie finished washing dishes and Jasmine pulled ingredients out of the fridge. In a few minutes they were both sitting in barstools with an impressive array of sandwich-making materials in front of them.

  “So we never really got to talk about Vegas,” Jasmine said, expertly wielding the knife in her hand and spreading mayo on a long slice of bread. “How was it?”

  “Like every other Vegas trip.” Do I want pickles? Natalie eyed the jar. Nah. “Tons of fun but I only remember about eighty percent of it.”

  Jasmine chuckled. “Sounds about right. You needed to let loose a bit. You’re always so focused on work.”

  “Not just work. Career. There’s a difference.” Natalie popped an olive into her mouth and sprinkled some more on her sandwich. “Some people are cool with just w
orking, but to me work is a means to an end.”

  Natalie gave Jasmine a cheeky sideways glance. “I did let loose, though.”

  “Oooooh!” Jasmine waited, sending Natalie sideways glances. “Well? Tell me about it! Was he hot?”

  “At the time. I was wasted,” Natalie admitted. She had already decided not to mention that she let loose with Brent. Jasmine knew Natalie’s next-door neighbor and knew the kind of love-hate sort-of friendship they had. Besides, it wasn’t something Natalie felt like she needed to talk about. Their hookup was just that—a hookup. No need to make a big deal out of a one-time thing.

  “What was his name?”

  “Hey, let’s sit in the living room,” Natalie said, already on her way to her sleek leather couch. She had anticipated this question and she didn’t have an answer for it.

  Instead of talking about her trip, she managed to get Jasmine talking about her own weekend at the beach. “All I really did was work on my tan.” Jasmine ended her short synopsis of the weekend, sounding disappointed. “One of the girls I invited was a real stick-in-the-mud. You have to come next time,” she insisted.

  “Definitely.” When Jasmine was around, Natalie didn’t make decisions like sleeping with her brother’s best friend. They kept each other out of trouble.

  “If you take my plate to the kitchen, I’ll grab your mail,” Jasmine offered, pointing out the window.

  Natalie just caught the red, white and blue colors of a mail truck disappearing around the corner. “Sure.”

  She had the plates rinsed and put in the dishwasher and most of the condiments put away by the time Jasmine came back inside. “So nosy,” she joked when she saw that Jasmine had separated one large envelope from the rest.

  “Always,” she agreed promptly. “You got this really big envelope from Vegas. You’re lucky I saw the mail truck and got it out of the box before it got bent too badly.”

  “Ooh, give me that!” Natalie snatched the envelope out of her friend’s hands. “When we were in Vegas, Gideon ditched me and Brent and we did this really cool ceremony at a street festival. They said we would be getting an official certificate of completion in the mail in a couple weeks.”

  “Sounds fancy.” Jasmine hovered over Natalie’s shoulder while she opened the envelope, taking care not to rip whatever was inside.

  Natalie peeled the edges of the envelope apart with her fingers and reached inside. There were two pieces of paper—thick, expensive-feeling paper. Official document paper.

  Her excitement grew when she freed the papers and let the envelope fall to the floor. “Oh, there’s two versions!” The foreign writing on the first version reminded her of the strange designs, patterns, clothes and chanting from the ceremony. She handed the second version to Jasmine without looking at it, figuring it must be the English one. This one was so much cooler though. It would totally be the one Natalie hung on her wall somewhere.

  “Uh... Natalie?”

  “Mhm?” Natalie leaned closer, trying to pick out any words that might be similar to ones she knew.

  “I don’t think this is a second version.”

  “Look, this must be the first version since it was an ethnic ceremony.” Natalie held the paper in the foreign language out to her friend.

  Jasmine looked at her strangely. “That’s not the version I have in my hands.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you need to look at this.” Jasmine handed the second paper back to Natalie.

  Natalie did look. She looked, and she realized immediately that there was no way that this page was the same as the other. It had a seal in the top left corner, fancy colorful edges and far less text than the other paper.

  Then she looked closer, and she saw two words that turned her blood into ice and her brain into uncomprehending mush.

  Marriage Certificate.

  Her eyes flew across the rows of filled-in blanks as Jasmine piped up. “It’s a marriage certificate by the state of Nevada,” she said helpfully. “Looks pretty official, too. And if I didn’t know better, I would say that was your signature... next to Brent’s.”

  Natalie’s mind tumbled back to the day of the ceremony. She remembered signing something—but what? What? That she couldn’t remember. Gideon had called a bunch of times and she wanted to hurry and call him back, so she just tossed her signature on the dotted line and left it at that.

  “Oh. My. God. It is your signature.” Jasmine had been watching Natalie’s face change with her thought processes and had come to the same conclusion as Natalie. “Holy shit. You went to Las Vegas and got married to Brent Cooke.”

  “I—I—no—” Every fibre of her being wanted to deny it, but the signatures were right there on the ‘official certificate’ that she had been waiting for and joking about for two weeks.

  “Yes!” Jasmine dropped the foreign-language paper on the counter to wipe tears of laughter out of her eyes. “Holy shit, you actually went to Vegas and got married. You actually—” Howls of laughter cut off her words.

  Natalie had never wanted to slap her best friend before, but there was a first time for everything. She had no idea what was going on or how she felt right now. She didn’t even know if she believed that the paper in her hand really was an actual official marriage license. All Natalie knew was that this wasn’t funny and she wanted answers from somebody.

  Natalie stood so abruptly that she knocked over her barstool. “Can you finish putting away this food?”

  Jasmine sniffed loudly and wiped away more tears, watching the document in Natalie’s hand flutter as she spun in place, searching the house for her keys. “Yeah. Where are you going? Married,” she added, her voice thick with unhushed hilarity.

  “To find—” Natalie grabbed the closest pair of shoes, which happened to be some very beat-up and grease-stained sneakers. “—Brent at the gym.” She snatched her purse from its hook.

  “Wait,” Jasmine said, her eyes wide. “Did you kiss Brent? For the ceremony?”

  Natalie gave her friend a glare and swiped her keys off the counter.

  “You did!” Jasmine hooted gleefully. “Oh my God, then this guy that you, uh, ‘let loose’ with—”

  “Goodbye, Jasmine,” Natalie said, closing the garage door behind her with enough force to make the doorframe shake.

  Her friend’s wails of laughter followed her until the roar of the Valkyrie drowned everything out. Jasmine was never going to let Natalie live this one down, but she had bigger things to worry about right now.

  Natalie’s address was the one they gave for a shipping address. That meant that Brent didn’t know about the certificate, and it meant that Natalie had about ten minutes of riding to breathe and try to understand what the hell was happening before she had to break the news.

  Chapter Eight: Brent

  Brent’s phone rang from its place in one of the gym cubby holes.

  He ignored it. “Come on, two more reps,” he encouraged Grace, his current client. “Two more is going to feel twice as good.”

  Grace’s arms shook as she went for her second-to-last rep on the bench press, but she completed it and lowered the bar back down to her chest.

  “Yes, that’s awesome! One more. You’ve got this. Squeeze your shoulder blades.”

  Under Brent’s enthusiastic encouragement, Grace went for her last rep. His hands hovered underneath the bar, but she managed to get her arms straight without his help.

  “Nice! You—” Brent’s phone rang again, cutting him off. He fumbled for a moment in his usual cheerful, supportive monologue. “You’re really improving,” he told her. “Let’s shoot for a new bench press PR next week.”

  “I actually already beat my PR in my apartment’s gym a couple weeks ago.” Grace grinned, swiping sweaty hair out of her eyes. “But I like lifting heavy.”

  “It’s really—sorry, would you mind if I check that real quick?” he asked apologetically as his phone piped up yet again. He hated interrupting the time his clients
specifically scheduled and paid for, but this was getting ridiculous.

  “Sure, no problem. I can use a little bit of a break.” Grace smiled and grabbed a disinfectant wipe for the bench press.

  Brent took the dozen or so feet between him and the cubbies at a jog. The only person who would call him repeatedly like this was Lydia Brownstone, his mother. Ever since Brent’s parents divorced, he had grown closer with his mother and more distant with his father. His mom was active, motivated and full of life, but his dad was grumpy and quiet most of the time, even while Brent was growing up. Brent valued his motivation and his goals, and he found that he had little in common with his father.

  As he dug through his bag, Brent ran through his options. If his mom had left a voicemail, he would call her back right away because something might be wrong. If not, he would finish up the last thirty minutes of this personal training session and then give her a quick call before his next client arrived.

  As it turned out, Brent wouldn’t be taking either of those options because it wasn’t his mother who had called.

  It was Natalie.

  Surprised, Brent checked his call history and sure enough, all four missed calls were from his best friend’s little sister.

  Weird, but whatever. I’ll call her back later. He shoved his phone back into his bag and did his best to shake it off as he jogged back to Grace with a big, apologetic smile on his face.

  It took Brent a full fifteen minutes to recover his warm, energetic and motivational attitude to push Grace through her tough workout. It took another five seconds to lose all that once again when the gym’s door burst open to admit a wide-eyed, helmet-haired Natalie wearing no makeup and a spaghetti-strap tank top while she waved a piece of paper in one hand.

  “Uh... are you here for personal training?” Brent asked, looking her up and down. “Because I’m the only one working right now and I don’t remember you having an appointment...”

  “No! I need to talk to you.”

  Oh God. Whatever this was, it was going to be bad, and Brent didn’t want to deal with it at work. “Can it wait?”