So Hot MC Boxset

by Blair Grey

  For one brief moment, I thought that going without him would be too hard. But then I knew he would never want me to miss out on a delicious cheeseburger and let the guilty thought move on through my mind.

  Mom put the plate of food in front of me. “Well, let’s see what your father wants to do. We don’t like you spending money on us, honey. You’ve spent too much of it on our mistakes as it is.”

  “It’s okay, Mom. I’ve got lots of money.” I found it a little amusing that I’d used money that I had never paid a dime of taxes on, nor had the men who’d given it to me, to pay the IRS debt off for my parents’ tax transgressions. “Right now, I’ve got enough to live off of for two years. And that’s with paying you guys some rent and helping out with all the other bills too.”

  Her hand went to her hip, still holding the spatula. “You will not pay us for a thing, young lady.”

  My father came in with a frown on his face. “I hope you aren’t trying to pay something around here. You know we won’t let you, sweetheart. You keep your money for your own needs and let us handle the bills here.” He patted my head as if I wear still a kid before he took his seat across from me at the table. “And you should know that we’re leaving this house to you in our will. Plus, you’re the sole beneficiary on bot of our life insurance policies.”

  Mom put Dad’s plate in front of him as she added. “And you’re the only person on our bank account who is to be paid whatever is left in our bank account when the last one of us keels over. We know we can’t ever give you all you have given us, but we’ll give you all we can.” Placing another piece of crispy bacon on my plate, she smiled at me. “Just let us do what we can to thank you for what you did to help us.”

  I hadn’t come home to let them take care of me, but it seemed to be what they really wanted to do. “How can I take that away from you guys?”

  If I couldn’t help out with the bills, I would help out with other things. Like getting them a new television. Theirs was ancient. And their car was a real piece of crapola too. I would buy myself one and make sure they used it more than they did the old one they had. There would be plenty of ways I could help them out without making them feel bad about me doing it.

  “She wants to take us to lunch, babe,” Mom let Dad know as she took her seat at the table.

  “I don’t know.” He stabbed his bacon with the fork.

  “Dad, please let me. I want to go to McManus’, and I don’t want to go alone.” I hadn’t told them about Ryder and thought I had better do that. “See, Ryder and I used to go there all the time and I think it might be hard on me of I go alone. He died only a little over a week ago.”

  My mother went pale as a ghost and my father gasped. “What? Oh, my! No!”

  “We just saw his mother the other day at the grocery store and she didn’t say a word about that.” Mom looked shocked.

  But I wasn’t shocked at all that his parents hadn’t been told. “Oh, no!” Someone had to let them know about what had happened to their son, but God knew I didn’t want to be the one to do that. “They must not know. See, he got into a biker gang in Baltimore and then he was trying to join another one in Atlantic City. It was on a trip back to Baltimore for some illegal business that he was shot and killed. I was on the phone with him when it happened. I’m still not over it.”

  Dad nodded. “You said it’s only been about a week, so that’s more than understandable, sweetheart. I can tell his family about his passing.” Looking grim, he went on, “Come to think of it, his mother had said that it had been a few years since she’d heard from him. He’d gotten married last she’d spoken to him. But you say he was on the phone with you when he was shot? How’s that?”

  “Um, we were sort of seeing each other. He and his wife divorced. It’s a long story and I would rather not get into it right now.” Or ever.

  Mom wasn’t going to let it end there. “His family has to be told.”

  That was the last thing I wanted to do or have my parents do. But Mom was right, Ryder’s parents did have to be told about his death. “I’ll go see them tomorrow. Did Mrs. Winslow give you their new address? They moved before you guys did. I thought you all had lost touch.”

  “We had,” Dad told me. “And she didn’t give us the new address.”

  Mom shook her head as she pushed her food around her plate, her appetite gone with my horrible news. “We didn’t ask for the address or the phone number. That was rather rude of us, I’m thinking now.”

  “Yes, it was,” Dad agreed. “We’ve been so out of it since we’ve come back to Camden. I guess with everyone knowing why we left our home and what we’d done to make all that happen, a bit of shame came back with us.”

  “I’m sure Ryder’s parents don’t think any less of you two.” They’d always been great people. People who didn’t deserve to have a son who had left them to go join the seedy world of biker gangs. “I think either Mr. or Mrs. Winslow had a wild and rebellious streak in their younger years that no one is aware of. Ryder had one a mile long. They wouldn’t throw stones at people like us.”

  Dad got up, putting his still full plate on the counter. “Don’t throw this away, I’ll eat it later. I just don’t think I can stomach food right now.”

  I couldn’t either now that I knew someone had to tell Ryder’s family the news. “I’m sorry for ruining breakfast, Mom. You worked so hard on it too.”

  She and I got up at the same time. “It’s not your fault.” A tear fell down her cheek and she sniffled as she wiped it away with the back of her hand. “I always thought that you two would’ve ended up married not long after high school got out. But you both went your sperate ways and things changed. I liked him. Even though he wore his hair too long and rode those dangerous motorcycles. May he rest in peace now.”

  I lowered my head and thought the same thing. If nothing else, the man was now resting, instead of having ups and downs with me, among other problems. “Maybe a walk through the neighborhood will do me good. I cried for three days straight over the loss of him. I’ve pretty much cried myself out. Or so I thought until I had to tell you guys about this. And if I’m going to tell his parents, then I need to figure out the right words to say.”

  Dad wasn’t about to make me take that task on alone. “We’ll go with you. I’m sure we can find the Winslow’s in social media. We’ll ask them if we can come over for a visit. You won’t have to go through that alone. I’m sorry you had to go through his death all alone. You should’ve come home then.”

  As if I could’ve.

  Leaving the Wicked Warlocks hadn’t been an easy thing to do. The risks I had taken to get out of there alone were high. But in the end, I’d managed to slip out after getting Max to go for donuts. He was happy as a clam that I wanted to eat some and practically ran to get me some.

  There was still some worry that I had. Moretti knew my real name. And now so did a few more of his MC brethren. Along with that, they knew the Ryder and I were originally from Camden. My hopes were on the other actors stepping up to take over the spot I’d vacated and taking the heat off of me and my leaving.

  With the MC not making a dime off of me for a couple of weeks as it was, I had the feeling they’d already found a new favorite to make money off of. My broken spirit with Ryder’s death was a thing not even Moretti himself could ignore.

  “Well, I’m home now, Dad. And the plan is to stay here from now on. I’m not leaving, is what I’m trying to say.” I wasn’t sure that parents even wanted their nearly thirty-year-old, grown-ass kids to come back home. But here I was anyway. “Home is where I want to be. It seems like I’ve been gone so damn long. It seems like I’ve been living someone else’s life all this time. I’m ready to be me again.”

  That’s all Ryder wanted to help me do and I couldn’t seem to do it until after I’d lost him. If I could’ve gone back in time, there would’ve been so many things that I would’ve changed. Being a bitch to Ryder would have been the first one.

  Mom pulle
d me with her as she went to the kitchen door that led out to the driveway that separated our house from the one Ryder’s family had lived in. “You know how the Winslow place is up for sale, right?”

  “I did see the sign in the front yard when I came home yesterday. It’s weird to see it empty like that.” I sort of hated it. “And the grass has never been higher. Mr. Winslow never let it get high at all, cutting it each and every Saturday morning at the crack of dawn.” I laughed a bit as I remembered how aggravated we all got at that man for waking us all up so damn early on the weekend.

  Mom nodded. “He was a real go-getter, that man. Anyway, if you go through the backyard, you can get into the house by the backdoor. It’s unlocked. The realtor came and told us that the other day. She asked if we would let people who came to look at the house know about that. You should go take a look.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” I didn’t want to cry again.

  “No, you really should go take a look. The last people who lived there totally updated it. They got so far as the inside, then it seems they moved before updating the outside.” Mom wasn’t taking no for an answer as she pushed me toward the door.

  “But, I don’t want to get sad again.” As if I’m not sad. I had managed to shove it down a good ways so it didn’t bubble up all the time. It was progress.

  “Go.” She pushed me through the door. “We can take a walk when you get back and you and I can discuss ways to tell his family the news.”

  “Maybe someone will beat us to it.” I prayed I was right. “I think I’ll pray for that to happen more than I’ll think of what I can say to them.”

  “You do that,” Mom said with a smile. “Nothing would make me happier than none of us having to tell them that awful news.”

  So, as I went to the gate at the entrance to the backyard of the old Winslow place, I began to silently pray that I wouldn’t have to tell Ryder’s family that he was dead.

  Walking up the back steps to the door that I’d gone through countless times, I thought I heard the sounds of feet running inside the house. Ryder always seemed to see me coming before I actually knocked and he’d run through the house, then throw the door open just as my fist formed.

  Only there weren’t really any bare feet stomping through the house. No one was in it. None of the Winslow’s would ever live in it again. Some strange family would come one day and move into the three-bedroom home.

  The kitchen was the first room I came into and it had been done in the latest design with state-of-the-art appliances and granite countertops. “Wow, Mrs. Winslow would’ve loved this.”

  What she won’t love is hearing the words, Ryder’s no longer with us coming out of my mouth.

  It haunted me that we’d been on the phone when he’d been shot. It would only serve to haunt me further if I had to add on a memory of telling his parents that he’d been shot and killed in a damn drug deal gone wrong.

  Closing my eyes, I said a silent prayer for something akin to a miracle to happen to make it so that I didn’t have to give them that terrible news. Please, don’t make me have to say those terrible words to anyone, Lord. Amen.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Ryder

  When my cell rang and I saw that it was Hailey calling, I knew what she was going to say. So, I answered, “No, I haven’t let Janeen know that I’m alive yet. I think she needs more time. I’ve told you this.”

  “You know that she’s back home with her parents,” she began a new tactic to get me to do what she thought best. “It’s been overnight since she got there. You have no idea if she’s planning to stay or not. So, for the love of God, call her and let her know that you are alive and a viable option.”

  I’d barely finished breakfast and didn’t think the time was right. “If she’s just eaten, this news might make her sick. You don’t want me to make to poor girl puke do you?” The truth was that I had no idea how to let her know what I’d done. She would be mad, but mostly she’d be hurt that I hadn’t confided in her soon after the incident.

  “She won’t puke.” With a moment of hesitation, she must’ve been thinking more about that. “Well, she might. But it’ll be worth it to her. I swear that it will.”

  “You really want me to make her lose the first breakfast she’s eaten with her parents in years?” I laughed to make light of the heavy situation. “You’re so mean, Hailey.”

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you’re the one who’s being mean. This woman loves you and you’re letting her believe the worst possible thing. And it’s gone on too long. It’s day nine today. That’s more than enough days. Are you worried about her being so mad at you that she’ll ignore you forever? Or are you more afraid that she’s going to be hurt, and you’ll have to bear the burden of all that guilt?” She’d figured me out.

  “Sure am.” But that wasn’t all. “I’m serious about giving her time to find herself. That’s the biggest part of this waiting thing.” That wasn’t a lie. So I had to figure out how to let her know that I hadn’t been killed while letting her know that I wanted her to have the freedom and space to find herself again. And those words didn’t seem to be coming to me yet.

  “You can let her have that time. But she needs to know that you’re alive. I don’t care if you leave out how you feel about her. But tell her that you are alive,” exasperation threaded through her voice. “Trust me, Ryder, just do it. Do it right now. You’ve got her number. It’s ten in the morning. She’s up. Call!”

  Putting the phone down on my bed in the small room off the back of the motorcycle shop in the Iron Cobras’ headquarters in Baltimore, I ran my hands over my face. “Fuck!”

  “Yes, fuck,” she echoed me. “Fucking do it, Ryder. Do it now. I’m hanging up now and if you don’t call me back by lunchtime to tell me that you did it, then I’m going to come and get in your face and stay there until you do what’s right.”

  She’ll do it too.

  “Fine.” I couldn’t believe I’d said it. “Sure. Okay. If you say so. Can I blame you when the shit hits the fan though?”

  “Nope. You know damn well that you should’ve called her within the hour of the fake death thing. I’m not taking any blame in that. You’ll have to shoulder all that blame on your own. You’re a big boy though, I know you can do it. So, get to it. Then call me to tell me all about how it went.” She ended the call and I stood at the foot of my bed with no words on my tongue.

  The cell I’d used while in Atlantic City was gone. It hadn’t been my real cell phone anyway. I hadn’t taken that one with me, just in case I was ever found out by the Wicked Warlocks. Now I had my real phone and my real number. A number that she wouldn’t recognize and might not answer.

  She was on the run from the MC after all. I knew she hadn’t struck a deal with Moretti to be able to leave with his kind regards. Janeen was in hiding, so she wouldn’t answer a call from some random number.

  And that meant that she was about to get a text message from what she would think would be – the grave.

  My finger hovered over the screen as I racked my brain for how to open the conversation.

  Hey, Janeen, it’s me, Ryder. Guess what, I’m not dead.

  No.

  My dearest Janeen, my love, my world, I am not dead.

  No.

  Hey, it’s me, Ryder. Call me.

  No way in hell.

  There was no right thing to say. But as I nearly gave up, a text from Hailey came in. – I know you’re having trouble coming up with an opening line. So, I thought I would help you out. Just shut your brain out and listen to your heart. It’ll tell you exactly what she needs to hear. –

  Hailey might not have been the woman I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with, but she was one hell of a great friend and I knew she always would be. So, I texted her back. - Thanks for the advice. I’m going to follow it right now. You’re a great friend and I’m lucky to have you. –

  Sitting down on the bed, I closed my eyes and pictured Jane
en in her old home. Eating a bowl of cereal, the way she’d done most mornings when I’d come over before school, she smiled at me. “Morning, my bad boy, biker.”

  Her blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail, her barely-there makeup, her tight blue jeans, and white t-shirt made her look like every teen boy’s wet dream. She’d been mine back then. Mine and only mine.

  My fingers moved over the screen as my heart told me what to write in the text. – Don’t be afraid, Janeen. This is your bad boy biker. Things aren’t what they’ve seemed to be. Call me when you catch your breath. We’ve got lots to talk about. I love you – always have – always will. –

  Not even two minutes later, my phone rang. I didn’t get to say a word as I put the phone to my ear as she shrieked with happiness, “Ryder! You’re alive!”

  “I am. And you’ve gotten away from Atlantic City.” Gulping back what felt like a knot in my throat, but couldn’t have been because men don’t cry, I felt my heart lift as the weight of the secret rose right off of it.

  “You sure do know a lot about me, Ryder Winslow. But I bet you will never guess where I am right now?”

  “Your bedroom?” I guessed.

  “Nope. I’m in your bedroom. I’m in your old house. And it’s been updated. It looks awesome.” She got quiet for a long moment, then I heard her sob. “Sorry. Sorry, Ryder. I’m just so, so damn…”

  “Relieved?” I asked. “Astonished? Shocked?”

  “Yeah, all those things.” The tears were heard in her voice, “I am so glad that you sent me that text. I was about to go tell your parents that you were dead.”

  “That would’ve been very bad.” I’d never thought about her telling my parents something like that. “I really should’ve called you that first day.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.” Her laughter, although weak and laced with remnants of sorrow, sounded good to me. “I’m not sure how I’ll make you pay for this, but you can bet your sweet ass that I will.”