My rating? Half a star because I liked the dedication, but with great reluctance I must give it one star because Goodreads won’t allow zero.
I published the review and reached for the bottle of wine. After raising it to my lips, I realized it was the same empty bottle I had so eagerly abandoned earlier.
Heavy, but empty.
Fuck.
After removing my glasses and tossing them to the side, I pushed myself away from my desk, stood, and sang backup for Madonna’s “Santa Baby,” which was the only thing that saved me from my wine deprived state of being. As the song came to a close, I smiled and fell back onto my bed with my arms outstretched.
After a moment of staring at the ceiling I rolled over and smashed my face into the closest pillow.
My lunch with Vince earlier in the day had been perfect.
Vince was perfect.
And I was sure I could be perfect for him, I just needed an opportunity.
I wrapped my arms around the pillow, squeezed it tight, and within a few seconds, began to softly cry.
And on that night, in a slightly drunken state of being, I cried myself to sleep for the first time in five years.
VINCE
November 6th, 2014
Our meeting ended, and a mandatory ride supporting Toys For Tots had been discussed at length. With Christmas fast approaching, the weather was less than favorable to ride, but as long as there wasn’t snow on the ground, we continued, regardless of the temperature. With all of the club’s heavies gathered on the side of the shop, I sauntered toward my bike as I pulled my stocking cap over my head.
“Vince,” Otis said with a nod as I walked past.
I raised my right hand slightly and nodded my head. “Fellas.”
“Headed to Toad’s barbeque joint for a few beers and some chow if you’re interested,” Axton said.
“Appreciate it. I think I’ll just…”
“Excuses are like fuckin’ assholes,” Biscuit said. “Everybody’s got one.”
I turned to face the group. Toad, Axton, Otis, Hollywood, and Biscuit were a club within the club, and for the most part, were a closer knit group than the club was as a whole. They really didn’t let the other fellas in their little group, other than to meet for a drink or take a short unscheduled ride out of town for a show of presence.
“I need to…”
“Need to loosen up, Brother,” Biscuit said. “Tell you the truth, you ought to knock you off some pussy. Been walkin’ around this motherfucker for the last year like a motherfuckin’ zombie. Come on, I got a story to tell that’ll make your toes curl.”
I glanced at my watch out of habit. Still stuck at three o’clock, it wasn’t much help. Hell, I didn’t have anything else to do, and I did need to eat something.
“Sounds good,” I said.
“Saddle up,” Axton said as he tossed his head toward his bike.
“Last one out lock up,” Axton said over his shoulder as he fired up his sled.
The thought of being part of their group for a short period of time was satisfying, but doing so on a long term basis wasn’t something I could ever do. It was far too easy to get caught up in patterns, routines, and eventually develop expectations of the men as friends, and eventually someone would fuck up and I knew enough about myself to know I would lose faith not only in the men, but in the club as a whole. Not exposing myself to the members as individuals protected me from being disappointed in their actions or broken promises, which, over time, were bound to happen.
The six of us rode the half mile to Toad’s barbeque joint, and carefully parked our bikes in front of the building side-by-side. After confirming my bike was perfectly parked beside Otis’, I turned toward the entrance and shoved my keys into my pocket.
“Hardcore motherfucker, ridin’ that Shovel. You work on that pig all the time or what?” Biscuit asked as we walked toward the door.
“Quite a bit, yeah,” I responded. “But it was my Pop’s bike, and…”
“Yeah, I heard that. Cool as fuck you kept it and all,” he said.
“Shovel’s are powerless,” Otis said as we walked inside.
I shook my head in disagreement. Harley replaced the Panhead motor with the Shovelhead in 1966, and in 1971 a world record was set by a man on a Shovelhead powered Harley. The bike was the first in the world to travel the quarter mile in less than nine seconds in a drag race. Propelling two wheels from zero to one hundred and sixty-eight miles an hour in less than nine seconds, and doing so in 1971, was a tremendous accomplishment.
“The first nine second bike in the quarter mile was a Shovel,” I said.
“Bullshit,” Otis snapped back.
“God damned truth,” Axton interrupted. “Man’s name was Joe Smith. Out in San Diego, I think.”
“Los Angeles. West Covina to be exact,” I said.
Biscuit coughed a laugh as we walked up to a table large enough to seat us. “Fuckin’ bookworm.”
“But the man’s got his facts straight. A god damned Shovel is bulletproof,” Axton said.
I nodded my head in his direction as we sat down, appreciative of his support of my bike in the presence of the other men. Each of them rode an almost brand new Harley, and with the exception of Axton’s bike, they were all pretty much unaltered and had very little personality.
My bike was a hodgepodge of parts, and looked the part of an old school hard-core biker’s bike. With faded black paint and very little chrome, it was loud enough to wake the dead. It had the same straight pipe exhaust my father rode it with, and the ape hanger handlebars were the only modification I made to it since obtaining it from my father. Older bikers gathered around it at every rally and poker run I attended. The younger bikers simply walked past it, most not even knowing what it was or what it was capable of.
Personally, I loved the thing.
“Cool old bike, if you ask me,” Biscuit said as we sat down.
Excluding Axton, of all of the men, Biscuit was the most genuine. He was the club story teller, and a practical joker. He reminded me a little of me, as he was against technology in many respects. He didn’t have a television, rarely carried his phone, and never cared to read the newspaper or hear anything about the world’s current events. Toad was a war hero of sorts, and had never really mentally came back to civilization after the war. He had a quick temper, was a martial arts specialist in addition to being a Marine, and was a walking time bomb. Otis was the Sergeant-at-Arms and acted as the protector of the club, but no one short of Axton ever really knew what he was thinking. He was six foot six and muscle from head to toe, so the SAA slot was a great place for him to be. Hollywood was another loner of sorts, and lived in the middle of nowhere, keeping to himself if he wasn’t with the smaller group of men. Of the group, I trusted him the least. My father always said the eyes don’t lie, and Hollywood’s eyes always were constantly filled with concern or worry. He was a club brother, and as much a Sinner as me, but it didn’t mean I had to trust him wholly.
And I didn’t.
“Everyone hungry?” Toad asked as he turned toward the kitchen.
The five of us glanced around the table and nodded our heads in confirmation.
“I’ll get ribs, links, and brisket coming. Sound good?” he asked.
“Sounds good, I appreciate it,” I said over the others grunting and nodding their heads.
After being gone a few minutes, Toad returned with a round steel tray filled with bottles of beer. As he reached for one of the beers, Biscuit began to tell his story.
“So, this gal was a waitress at Hooters, and built like a brick shithouse. She had tits the size of that pumpkin that was sittin’ on my porch ‘till Halloween and a waist about twenty-six inches at most. So, one of the El Forastero’s and me was havin’ a beer and this gal walks up to the table. ‘Are you a real biker?’ she asks. I said, ‘If having a Harley and a ten-inch cock makes me a real biker, I guess so.’ She stands there for a minute, tilts her head to the side, and say
s, ‘show it to me.’ ‘Shit,’ I said, ‘the motherfucker’s right outside the window, see for yourself.’ She grins like a shit eatin’ possum and shakes her head. ‘Not the bike,’ she says. ‘Show me your cock.’” he paused and scanned the group for a reaction.
“Bullshit,” Hollywood chimed in as he took a drink of beer.
Biscuit turned toward Hollywood, cocked an eyebrow, and rubbed his beard with his right hand. “Might be a lot of things, ‘Wood, but a liar ain’t one of ‘em. You don’t wanna hear this tale, grab you a rib to go and hop on that sled and point her west.”
“Go ahead,” Hollywood said with a heavy sigh.
“So I looked at Ol’ Red Wing and winked. Then I turned toward the gal with the titties and pulled out my meat right there at the table. Now, this all happened in about ten seconds, so I didn’t even have a chance to work me up a chubby, but I yanked the Hankster out and he was about half limp, but just half. So I get it out, and I shake it at her a little bit. And she covers her mouth like this,” he paused and raised his hand to his mouth.
“Gal’s eyes get wide as a couple dinner plates, and she says, ‘It ain’t even hard, is it?’ Hell, I drop my cock in my lap and shake my head. ‘Do you think I walk around with a stiff cock all day, Lady?’ I ask her. ‘It makes me dizzy if I do’,” he said as he slapped his hand against the table.
“So what’d she do?” Otis asked.
“Well, if you’d stop fuckin’ interruptin’ I’d sure as fuck tell ya. Anyone else want to ask any stupid questions before I continue?” Biscuit asked as he surveyed the group of men.
Axton shook his head from side to side and twisted his index finger in a circle. On his signal, Biscuit continued.
“So she glances over each shoulder, stares down in my lap, and shakes her head. Now she don’t know it cause she’s checking to make sure there ain’t gonna be a crowd gatherin’ around the table and not payin’ attention, but I been stroking this fucker for about thirty seconds at this point. So anyway, she looks down in my lap and she does this…”
He paused, covered his mouth with his hand, and inhaled a sharp shrill breath.
“She stares at it for a minute, and without lookin’ up, she says, ‘Holy shit. Does it get bigger?’ I stop strokin’ it, look over my shoulder, and turn toward her. ‘Only if it’s in a gal’s twat. But she’s got to have really big titties.’ I tell her. And she looks at me like she won the lottery. Now I ain’t shittin’, fellas, not one bit. She looks at me, drops her hand away from her mouth, and this crazy bitch says, ‘Oh my god, I’ve got huge titties.’ Red Wing spit out about half his beer, and I just widened my eyes and said, ‘Hell, I didn’t even notice.’ It wasn’t ten minutes, and I was balls deep in that gal’s twat in her SUV in the parking lot. Motherfucker had three of them kid seats in the back, which was kinda weird for a minute,” he said.
“You’re a fucking whore,” Otis said with a laugh.
“And damned proud of it,” Biscuit said. “But that’ll be the last she’s gonna see of me.”
“Why’s that?” Toad asked.
“Are you fucking kiddin’ me? I ain’t lookin’ to raise another man’s kids,” Biscuit said.
I found it strangely satisfying that all of the men at the table were single, and for the most part, short of Biscuit, none of them were actively pursuing women. Biscuit’s pursuit was more of a hobby or sport than a desire driven by any means of attraction, and excluding him, the men shared the same feelings regarding women.
I sat quietly, thinking of Sienna as the food showed up. As everyone reached for a plate, my mind began to wander to the what ifs and the why nots of being in a relationship with her. All things considered, I was more of an individual, and never conformed to the patterns or opinions of the masses, these five men included. If I was going to be in a relationship with her, it was going to be for all the right reasons, and although I believed sex was always an important part of a relationship, it wasn’t the sole reason to be in one.
As I ate a rib and paid very little attention to the next story Biscuit began to tell, I decided the next time I saw Sienna, we were going to have a talk.
A serious talk.
SIENNA
November 9th, 2014
With perfect hair, perfect nails, perfect makeup, a great pair of jeans, a bad ass pair of 2” heels, and a sweet as fuck wool coat, I raced through traffic as I alternated glances between the road and my rearview mirror.
My eyebrows looked reasonable, as always.
As The Eurythmics “Winter Wonderland” blared out of the speakers, I weaved in and out of traffic with my typical five minutes to spare and four minutes of driving left. While stuck at a traffic light, I once again checked my eyebrows in the mirror.
I looked like I had turned a three year old loose on my face with a molten brown crayon. I seemed to never get my eyebrows to reach the point of perfection. The light flashed green just as Bryan Adam’s “Run Rudolph Run” began to play.
Now that’s more like it.
I mashed the gas, lurched through the intersection, and quickly changed lanes in front of the old man in the pickup truck who had been beside me for the entire trip. After another lead-footed display of the Continental’s awesome power I was far enough ahead of him not to raise his temper, so I hit the brakes and turned right into the Bradley Fair shopping center. A quick scan of the parking lot and I found the perfect spot - on the end and in the front.
No door dings for Sienna.
I pulled in the spot, hugging the far side for safety’s sake. I shut off the engine, opened the glove box, and flipped the switch to the stereo. Vince’s bike was parked up front by the door on the sidewalk.
A quick glance in the mirror further confirmed I was nothing short of a spastic eyebrow plucking idiot, so I opened the door and began my shameful walk to what I was certain to be the impending death of our six month old friendship.
Death by bad eyebrows.
I pushed the door open and glanced toward the seating area.
Sitting immediately beside the door on a long leather bench, Vince tapped the face of his watch with his index finger.
“Sorry, I was early,” he said. “This thing’s hit and miss. I thought I had it fixed, but it quit again. I didn’t want to be late, and I wasn’t sure what time it was, so…”
“Well, by my clock in the Lincoln, I was one minute early,” I bragged.
“Pretty typical,” he said. “I have no idea how you do it with consistency.”
“I wait down the block until there’s one minute left, then I haul ass to where we’re meeting,” I said.
He nodded his head. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”
His beard was full, typical of what most men with beards do for winter time, I supposed. He had on a black canvas jacket over a long-sleeved khaki shirt, and a black stocking cap pulled down low on his head. The jeans he was wearing were perfectly worn, from wearing them, not because he bought them that way. I admired him as he stood, wondering how he got each and every hole in them, and just what it was that happened to cut the hole above his right knee.
He interested me so much it made me sick.
“I’m following you,” he said as he pointed into the restaurant.
I walked through the restaurant toward the blazing fireplace. It wasn’t quite winter yet, but it was much cooler than what we had been used to, and was just a few degrees shy of fifty.
Vince had picked a time that was well after lunch, but a few hours before dinner. Because it wasn’t necessarily the holiday season just yet, the restaurant, short of us and one other couple, was empty. Being almost alone with Vince was enough of a change to fool me into thinking we were on a romantic date, and I was pretty sure after I got my book reviews done for the night, I would pleasure myself daydreaming about it.
“I like it here by the fireplace,” I said as I flopped into the seat.
“Your hair looks nice,” he said as he sat down.
“Oh, thank you,” I said.
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“So do your heels,” he said. “I like heels with jeans.”
“I just grabbed what was at the end of the closet, thanks,” I said.
Actually, I had spent almost an hour trying on shoes and trying to pick the perfect pair. Some made me look ridiculous, some for whatever reason seemed to no longer fit, and a few of the others killed my feet. This particular pair of 2” black heels felt great, looked great, and didn’t break the bank when I bought them.
Shoe sales are the best thing ever.
“I like your jeans,” I said with a grin. “They’re awesome.”
“My jeans?” he asked in a slightly sarcastic tone. “Why’s that?”
“Because they’re worn out, but I know you wore them out. You didn’t buy them like that. I like worn out jeans,” I said.
“I’ve had these fuckers for years,” he said. “And you’re right. I wore these fuckers out for sure.”
“Well, I like them,” I said.
“Thanks,” he responded as he waved to the waitress.
“I’m sorry, you order at the register,” she said as she walked up to the table.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Never eaten here.”
“Me neither, one of the fellas recommended it,” he said as he pushed his seat away from the table.
We walked side by side to the register, where a six foot tall wooden menu was on display. Quite surprised I didn’t see it or stumble into it on my way inside the restaurant, I chuckled and pointed toward it.
“Probably missed it because it’s so small,” I said with a laugh.
The menu was a good foot taller than I was. Vince laughed and nodded his head as he studied the descriptions painted on the wooden display.
“I’m going to have the pizza and salad deal,” I said after looking over the menu.
“Which pizza?” he asked as he continued to stare at the options.
“The one with artichokes and roasted garlic, sounds good. And I don’t have to worry about kissing anyone, so no worries,” I said.
A man walked in, stepped behind us, and peered over Vince’s shoulder toward the menu. After a glancing over his shoulder a few times, Vince sighed and turned around.
Money Shot: Selected Sinners MC Romance Page 7
