Ride Steady

by Kristen Ashley

  You wanted to be free, you got on your bike and rode in the moonlight.

  You did not drink martinis you didn’t like. You did not take a job your mother-in-law thought you should have. You did not take guff from your ex, not ever.

  You did what you wanted.

  You were free.

  In all that was happening to me, all that I was feeling, all the disappointment of that night and the bizarre devastation I felt that the first time this happened, me on the back of a bike, I would have preferred it be with Joker… right then, for that moment, I let it all go.

  I let it go, held on to Snapper and I let myself feel it.

  Feel something rare and beautiful and overwhelming.

  Feel something I knew for certain I hadn’t felt in my whole life.

  Free.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  He Gave Me You

  Joker

  JOKER SWUNG OFF his bike and headed to the Compound, his mind consumed—as it had been since that shit happened—with the vision of Snapper touching Carissa’s face, of Carissa smiling.

  He’d ridden a long time. Long enough to get that crap out of his head.

  But it hadn’t worked.

  He put his hand to the door, pulled it open, and was not surprised to see that the party was over. The music was low, the common room had a few bitches and bikers passed out on couches, but mostly the room was cleared. It was early the next morning, the rest had either hooked up and already sent their bitches home, were still with their bitches in their beds, or they’d passed out.

  “Dick move.”

  Shy’s words sounding from his right made Joker turn his head that way.

  His brother’s eyes were on him and one look, Joker knew the man was pissed.

  Jesus, what now?

  “Say again?” he asked.

  “She came for you,” Shy bit out. “And right in her face, you hooked up with Stacy. Dick move, Joke. Fuck. Seriously.”

  Joker stopped well down from where Shy, Tab, and High were congregated at the bar, High inside, bottle on the bar in front of him with glasses at the ready, apparently doing shots.

  High engaged in this activity was not a surprise.

  High had not been at the party. He had an old lady and kids. He liked to be around his kids, so it was rare, unless it was a family thing, that he partied.

  Not the same with the old lady, the liking to be around her part.

  Chaos history stated High and his woman had never been tight. He’d knocked her up and done the right thing for their kid, the wrong thing for High. Since then, it had never been copasetic. Joker knew her and she didn’t have old lady in her. It was rare she’d show at anything related to Chaos, sending her kids to the family shit but not showing herself, and she put up with her man so he’d put a roof over her and her kids’ heads.

  So it was frequent when High’s kids were asleep that he’d leave the woman behind in a home that was far from happy, come to the Compound, and throw a few back.

  He quit thinking about High and focused on Shy.

  “She get home okay?” he asked.

  “Do you give a shit?” Shy returned, and Joker felt his frame come alert.

  He was not doing this again.

  “Think I made this clear the other night, not your business who I fuck,” he returned. “But, just sayin’, Stacy was ridin’ the edge of smashed, the bitch has no problem drivin’ in that state, and so she wouldn’t fuck herself up, or someone else, I took her ass home. Then I took a ride. I didn’t hook up with shit.”

  Shy visibly relaxed.

  “She likes you,” Tab said softly.

  She was right.

  Carissa definitely liked him.

  Then again, Carissa didn’t know him, so Tab was also wrong.

  “She likes havin’ people in her life who give a shit,” Joker returned.

  “There a reason you got a block about this bitch?” High asked.

  Joker didn’t do this. He didn’t share.

  He looked to High.

  High didn’t share either. High was a hard motherfucker who kept himself to himself.

  But High had once laid it out to Joker over vodka and brotherhood that home was no good. It made him miserable. And worse, he was worried the mask was slipping and his kids could read it.

  Joker had been shocked as shit when the man shared. He’d also felt grateful. His brother giving him that said a lot about how he felt about Joker, and Joker didn’t miss any of it.

  And he’d decided it was time to do this.

  So he said, “I’m not that guy.”

  “What guy?” High asked.

  “The guy she needs,” Joker answered.

  “How do you know?” Shy asked.

  Joker looked to him. “Because I don’t like butterflies. They’re beautiful, but they’re delicate, and I don’t got it in me to handle anything with care.”

  “Maybe you’re wrong,” High noted.

  “And maybe I got a life that proves I’m right,” Joker returned.

  “You can’t know unless you try,” Tabby put in.

  “And chew her up in the meantime?” Joker asked and shook his head. “She doesn’t need that shit.”

  None of them had an answer to that and he knew why.

  They knew he was right.

  “She’s home safe,” Tabby told him. “She texted me when she got there. But before she took off, she went for a ride with Snapper.”

  Fuck.

  Joker clenched his teeth, pushing the thought of Carissa wrapped around his brother on his bike to the back of his mind, where, for her sake, he’d put their fucking unbelievable kiss—and the fact she’d laid that on him, not the other way around—doing that hoping like fuck, if she wanted to find a man to get her off, she took that shit off Chaos.

  “Good to know she’s safe,” he muttered, tipping his chin to them and moving away.

  No one stopped him so he went to his room, took off his clothes, and fell into bed.

  He laid in bed and as he did it, he smelled the fading scent of fabric softener on his sheets.

  So he did it thinking of Carissa.

  And he didn’t sleep.

  * * *

  The next day, Joker rode his bike onto the cement that made up the forecourt of the two-bay garage. The place was a mess, cars everywhere, tires stacked all around, the large square-paned windows of the office dirty, one cracked and held together with tape. He saw the doors of both bays up, cars in each, men working on them.

  Taking it in, Joker knew it wasn’t rundown because it was rundown. It was rundown because they had so much work, they didn’t have time to straighten it up.

  He liked this.

  He parked, swung off his bike, and stood by it, eyes on the bays.

  He’d come. Finally.

  Now the man had to come to him. He didn’t know why, but he figured it had something to do with Carissa. She’d been around him more than once, took his tongue, whimpered into his mouth (and Christ, he had to bury that shit as well, that whimper alone had him near to losing control and ripping her clothes off), and still, she didn’t know who he was.

  This had to go a certain way.

  If it didn’t, he’d get on his bike and leave it behind.

  All of it.

  Forever.

  He saw a man come to the end of the bay, wiping his hand on a rag.

  “Yo, bro! You need something?” he yelled.

  Joker didn’t reply. Just stood by his bike, cut on—the patch on the back he had no clue if the man had seen. But if he had, the guy would know he was dealing with Chaos, and how he handled that would tell the tale. Joker also had his arms crossed on his chest, shades covering his eyes, which were aimed at the bay.

  “Dude, seriously, you need something?” the guy shouted.

  Joker didn’t move.

  The man stared at him, swung his head to look behind him, then his eyes came back to Joker. A few beats later, a big black guy came walking to the end of t
he bay.

  There he was.

  The owner of this establishment. The man who’d bought it five years ago and made it thrive.

  Joker braced.

  The man looked at him, and even from a distance, Joker could see him looking harder.

  He felt his insides draw tight.

  Then Linus Washington’s face broke into a big smile and he hooted, “Holy fuck!”

  Joker felt his body loosen as Linus started to jog, heading Joker’s way.

  “Holy fuck! Car!” he shouted as he jogged. “Jesus! Fantastic!”

  He made it to Joker and didn’t hesitate before snaring his hand, holding it firm in his, and moving in to bump chests and round Joker with an arm, pounding him on the back.

  Joker closed his eyes behind his shades and returned the gesture.

  Linus broke free but left their hands gripped between them, shaking them back and forth before he finally let Joker go.

  “Christ, good to see you. Fuck me.” His eyes tipped down and up and his smile stayed steady. “You look good.”

  “Same, Lie.”

  Linus accepted the comment by lifting a hand and clapping him on the shoulder.

  “Where you been, Car?”

  “Around and about. Came back just over a year ago.”

  The smile stayed in place even as he stated, “Well, kiss my ass, dickhead. Over a year and this is the first time you come to see me?”

  “Not big on visiting the old ’hood,” Joker told him. Then he went on to lie, “Just found out about your place, decided to swing by.”

  It was a lie because Joker had known about Linus’s garage even before he approached Chaos to join their ranks.

  But back then, he wasn’t ready.

  He didn’t know why he was ready now. He just was. So he’d rolled with it.

  “Don’t live in that ’hood anymore, bud. Got me three kids. I look at my woman, she gets pregnant. And Kamryn wasn’t big on raisin’ our crew in a two-bedroom house. We moved to Littleton four years ago.”

  Joker studied the face of a happy man and said quietly, “Glad for you, brother.”

  “Not as glad as me,” Linus replied just as quietly. “You gotta come meet my kids, Car. Two boys, in the middle, a girl. Apple of her daddy’s eye. And my boys,” his chest puffed up, “tough. Love their momma, make their old man proud.”

  Joker nodded.

  He liked that too.

  “Kamryn?” he asked.

  “Woman gets prettier every day,” Linus told him. “Don’t know how she does it. Tell her I think she’s got voodoo. She just laughs and falls on my dick. Six weeks later, she’s pregnant. That’s my life.”

  “Heard worse,” Joker remarked.

  “Bet you have,” Linus said low.

  Joker rounded that and asked, “Mrs. Heely still at her place?”

  The joy slid out of Linus’s face and Joker again braced. “Kam got her a new place a year back. Assisted living, so it ain’t like it’s a shithole where you go to die. What it is is life. She just got old, found it harder to get around, took a fall. Luckily, she and Kam and the kids had planned to do something that day. Kam found her. Got her sorted.”

  “Shit,” Joker muttered.

  “She worried about you,” Linus told him. “You took off, that asswipe didn’t do dick. Mrs. Heely marched over there, givin’ him shit about how her boy was dead, his boy was alive and breathin’ and a good kid, and how your old man was good for nothing. Shouted and carried on so much, had to go over and get her outta there. No tellin’ what your dad would do if he lost it. Even with an old lady.”

  That was the fucking truth.

  “You should go see her, Car. She’ll be freakin’ beside herself, you show.”

  Joker drew in breath before he made his decision and nodded.

  “Tell me where she is, I’ll drop around.”

  Linus grinned at him.

  Then his eyes fell to Joker’s jacket and bike before coming back to his face.

  “Found yourself a place to belong?”

  Joker nodded.

  “You good there?”

  “Got brothers. The good kind. Don’t know what to do with them. But they’re patient with showin’ me the path.”

  “Like that, Car,” Linus murmured.

  “Joker, Lie,” Joker corrected. “Left the boy I was at my dad’s house. I’m him on paper only. Now, I’m Joker. It’s a better fit for me.”

  Linus held his eyes. “I get that.” He tipped his head to the side and his lips curved up. “Find yourself a good woman?”

  “A few.”

  Linus’s lips turned down. “Mean a certain kind, son.”

  “Know what you mean, and no.”

  “You’re young,” he muttered.

  He didn’t feel young, but he still was.

  That didn’t change who he was and how he intended to live his life, and no good woman would be a part of that. But Linus didn’t need to know that.

  “You’re at work,” Joker said. “I’ll leave you alone. But give me Mrs. Heely’s details, I’ll go ’round.”

  “Sure thing,” Linus said, turning and inviting, “Come to the office. Gotta call Kam to get it.”

  Joker followed him.

  Linus spoke while he walked.

  “Not shittin’ you, Car… I mean, Joker. Want your ass at my table. Kam’ll wanna see you too, and I want you to meet my kids.”

  Joker made another decision.

  “I’ll be there.”

  Linus gave him another smile.

  Ten minutes later, he left with Mrs. Heely’s address, Linus’s number in his phone, his in Linus’s, and after another back-pounding hug.

  He rode off seeing Linus standing outside the bay, still smiling.

  Joker didn’t smile.

  But that didn’t mean he didn’t feel good.

  * * *

  “Oh my goodness gracious!” Mrs. Heely cried, her hands going straight up in front of her before she reached further, slapped them on either side of his head, and didn’t let go. “Carson!”

  She’d just opened the door and, like Linus, she knew exactly who he was.

  She shook his head side to side. “Oh my goodness gracious! Goodness! What a fantastic surprise! I can’t believe it! I simply can’t!”

  “Yo, Mrs. Heely,” he greeted.

  She dropped her hands and narrowed her eyes. “Yo? What kind of greeting is ‘yo,’ Carson Steele?” Before he could answer (not that he was going to), she kept at him. “And when was the last time you got a haircut? Or had a shave?”

  “Like it like this,” he told her.

  “You look scruffy,” she returned. “You’re a handsome boy. You shouldn’t hide it under all,” she circled her finger two inches from his face, “that.”

  “You gonna let me in or make me stand outside your door for the next hour, ridin’ my ass?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes, pretending to be pissed even when she wasn’t. He knew. He saw her mouth quirk.

  He also knew because she used to do that when she’d give him shit and mean it, but not.

  He’d missed it, but he didn’t know that he had until right then.

  “Your language. Always did my head in with your language. I blame your father.” She pierced him with a glare. “For a lot of things.”

  He didn’t have a chance to say anything, she stepped aside.

  “Get in here,” she ordered, waving her hand at him and moving inside. “If I knew you were coming, I’d have made cookies. Since I didn’t, you get Chips Ahoy or Oreos. I think I also have some Nilla Wafers.”

  Fuck, but it felt good to know some things didn’t change.

  “May have escaped you, darlin’, but I’m not eight anymore,” he muttered, coming in behind her and closing the door.

  She whirled on him. “I’m not either. I still like my cookies.”

  He stared at her.

  She rolled her eyes again and flounced through the small living room to an even sma
ller kitchen.

  Joker followed, not liking what he saw. Not that it was a pit, just that it was small. She’d filled it with stuff that was familiar to him, made it hers. But it wasn’t like the house she’d lived in that just was her, becoming that after she’d spent decades of her life living in it.

  And there was no flag outside the door.

  “Where’s the flag?” he asked carefully as he hit the kitchen.

  “We have a clubhouse where all of us in God’s waiting room go to experience such thrills as bingo and movie night, with every movie they show being PG. I told them about the flag. They let me fly it out there,” she answered, grabbing all three brands of cookies, dumping them on the counter, and shuffling to the fridge to get out the goddamned milk.

  He nearly smiled because the last glass of milk Joker drank, she’d poured it.

  “Good you still got it in your sights,” he told her and she looked to him after pulling down a glass.

  “Never let it out of my sight, sweetheart.”

  Joker fought back swallowing against the lump suddenly clogging his throat.

  She poured him milk.

  After she did that, she slid it along with the cookies toward where he was leaning a hip against her counter. “Where you been?”

  “Here and there,” he answered, reaching for an Oreo. He gave her his eyes. “Home now.”

  “Good, Carson,” she said softy.

  “Not Carson. Known as Joker, Mrs. Heely. Left my father’s son behind.”

  She nodded, surprising him with her easy acceptance of that, her eyes moving to his cut before lifting again to his, “Found a home.”

  “Yeah, and brothers.”

  “Hear some of those motorcycle boys can raise Cain,” she noted. “Hear some of them take care of their own.”

  “I got both.”

  She grinned. “Reckon that’s good.”

  “It is,” he assured her.

  “Missed you,” she whispered, blindsiding him. The look on her face, her tone, the suddenness of it, taking it in, his insides shredded. “Worried for you, bad. Missed you, worse. Thought about you every day and—”

  He shut her up by shoving the Oreo in his mouth and pulling her in his arms.

  She wrapped hers around his middle and pushed her face in his chest. She was tough, though, and he wasn’t surprised when she got a lock on it and didn’t lose control in about the time it took him to chew and swallow the cookie.