We stood there talking about innocuous things like the perpetually mediocre University of Kentucky football roster for a while, until we heard the bartender come on over the loud speaker. “It’s twelve o’clock, folks! I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here!”
“Closing time,” he said, looking down at me. “Want to take this party back to my place?”
I was shocked at his forwardness, but I was prepared for this too. “What kind of girl do you take me for? No, I will not go home with you. I’m not some little piece of tail you guys can trade around whenever you feel like it. I know how you guys can be, but I’m not like that. It was nice to meet you, Sonny, but I’ll be going home now…alone.”
“I see. I see.” He smiled and smoothed his fingers over his goatee. “Fair enough. Maybe I’ll catch you around here another time then?”
“Maybe,” I said, grabbing my helmet and situating it on my head. “We’ll see.” I hopped on my bike, revved up the engine, and pulled away, leaving Sonny standing there with his hands on his hips, shaking his head and laughing.
Chapter 7
I decided to lay low for a week or so, for a couple of reasons. Number one, I didn’t want to seem too desperate. Number two, I was hoping that he’d be looking for me, so when I finally did show up, he’d be happy to see me. Classic game of hard-to-get. This was my hope, anyway. I had no idea if my little ploy was going to work, or whether it was too big a gamble, but I had gotten his attention, which was more than I thought I’d be able to accomplish on the very first day.
I spent the week cleaning up the house and getting it to an inhabitable state. I read some books as well. I re-read Anna Karenina by Tolstoy—it was just as long and tragic as I remembered—then started a classic Stephen King novel, Christine.
Several days later, when I finally had the house in a state that I could live with, and classic books by Tolstoy and King could no longer hold my attention, I decided it was time for me to venture back out to The Hole. I got all gussied up, locked up the house, jumped on my new bike, and headed downtown to the bar. It was a little earlier than I had arrived last time—around nine o’clock at night—so I didn’t expect Sonny to be there quite yet. I parked in the same place I had last week and secured my helmet.
I was surprised, however, when I walked in and saw Sonny seated at one of the tables closest to the doorway. He noticed me immediately.
“Trish, right?”
I nodded my head.
“Come, sit down with us. There’s room here at my table. That is, unless you’re here to meet someone else?”
“No, I was just coming to hang out.” I took the seat that Sonny had scooted out for me. “Good to see you again, Sonny,” I said with a playful smile.
“You too. Where you been?” he asked, looking truly curious.
“Oh, I’ve been busy working on my dad’s estate shit,” I told him. I didn’t really cuss in my real life, but this character I was playing was supposed to be tough as nails.
“Really? Because I could have sworn you were playing hard to get.” He smiled and winked at me.
“Hard to get?” I thought for a minute. “Baby, I don’t have to play hard to get. I am hard to get.”
His buddies all whistled and made a “she-told-you” noise. Then I wondered if I’d been too forward, too brash. Sonny just pursed his lips, nodded his head, and said, “Okay, okay. I get it. You’ve made that very clear, darlin’.”
I was sure I had gone too far with my little game until he smiled at me. “Buy you a beer?”
“Sure. I’ll have a Bud.” I was going to have to get used to the taste of beer, apparently.
He reached back and motioned for Big Jim, and when he got his attention, yelled for him to bring me a Bud from the tap.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Trish here is new to Nicholasville. Here to take care of her old man’s business. He just passed away,” Sonny informed his buddies. “Trish, this here’s Spider and Jimmy. Jimmy’s my cousin on my mom’s side and Spider here…he’s our newest recruit, a prospect.”
“What’s a prospect?” I asked.
“A prospect is a prospective member of our motorcycle club. He wants desperately to be like us, but he’s got a lot of proving to do before we patch him in. Ain’t that right, Spider?”
“Yeah, Sonny. That’s right,” he said sheepishly. I noticed that Spider, despite his ominous nickname, looked nothing like the other bikers in the bar. He was young, barely twenty, if that, and had sandy blond hair. No tattoos that I could see, and he was scrawny compared to Sonny’s muscular physique.
“You’re in a motorcycle club?” I asked, playing dumb.
“Wow, you are new around here, ain’t ya, pretty thang?” Jimmy observed.
“That’s enough, Jimmy,” Sonny admonished. “Yes. Most of the guys in here are in the MC. See here?” He turned his back toward me and turned his head at an angle so I could still see his face. On the back of his cut was a large picture of a skeleton on a horse. The horse was reared back as if it were going to attack something or someone below. The skeleton had a scythe in its right hand and its left hand was on the horse’s reins. “Lords of Chaos Motorcycle Club, Nicholasville, Kentucky Charter.” He turned back around, looking proud of himself.
“I see. And these other patches on the front? What do they stand for?” I knew now that I had him talking about himself and the club, his ego was going to allow him to brag and tell me as much as I needed to know for now. The basics, anyway.
He pointed to a patch on his left breast. It read “Jackson” in black letters. Underneath that one was another one that said “Vice President.”
I knew it was time for me to lay on the girly charm. “Ooooooh. You’re the vice president, huh? That’s pretty awesome. Who’s the president?” As if I didn’t already know.
“My dad, Leroy. He’s the president of the entire charter. Whenever he retires or kicks it, whichever comes first, I’ll be the new president.”
“Long as the club votes it that way,” Jimmy added.
Sonny kicked him under the table. I looked down and noticed Sonny’s boots. They were black leather, like mine, only his had a silver chain that wrapped around the ankle. “Of course the club will vote that way. If they know what’s good for them.” Sonny chuckled.
“What exactly does a motorcycle club…do?” I asked, trying to appear as ditzy as he’d expect any girl to be.
“Oh, you know, ride around…go on charity runs…help out in the community…things like that. Generally, we just…hang out.”
“Sounds interesting.” He didn’t know that I was aware that they did much, much more than just hang around.
“So, Trish…what do you do for a living?” Sonny leaned back in his chair and looked directly at me.
Luckily, I was prepared with my backstory. “Well, I was a nurse in Lexington, but I had to quit my job when Dad started going downhill. I had to take care of him almost twenty-four-seven the last couple of weeks. Then, he passed away and I had to move down here to take care of the house and, well, you know the rest.”
“That sucks, man. You had to quit your job? Do you miss it? Being a nurse, I mean?” This was the first time I’d looked at him and thought he might be sincere and not trying to schmooze me. I forgot for a split second that he was an alleged drug-smuggling murderer.
“Yeah, I miss it. I was a labor and delivery nurse, so I worked with newborn babies.” I paused to make it seem like I might truly be sad. “Yeah, I do miss it. I’ll get back to it, though, as soon as I get my dad’s estate taken care of.”
“So you’re not gonna stick around good ol’ Nicholasville? You’re going right back to the Big City?” Sonny asked.
“Oh yeah. This is temporary. I mean, no offense to your hometown or anything, but Nicholasville is way too small for me. I miss Lexington.”
“What’s Lexington got that we don’t?” he asked.
“Um…stoplights?” I joked. Nicholasville did hav
e stoplights, but not many.
“Oh, ha ha. She’s a comedian, this one.” Jimmy pointed at me.
“No, seriously. It’s just that small towns…well, everyone’s always in your business. There’s no privacy. Everyone knows everything about you. You can’t get away with anything in a small town.”
“Oh, really?” Sonny looked intrigued now. “What, for example, would you need to ‘get away with’? Surely you’re a good girl. I mean, you’re college-educated, a nurse…what kind of trouble could you possibly get into?”
“You’d be surprised,” I teased.
“Oh, do tell,” he demanded.
“Let’s just say I’m not quite the angel you may think I am. I’ve had my fair share of brushes with the law.”
I was immediately grateful for the Agency’s thoroughness when creating my backstory. This was a crucial conversation. I needed Sonny to believe that I was not only okay with criminal conduct, but that I myself had gotten into trouble in my past. He’d be much more likely to confide in me down the line if he thought I had a rebellious criminal streak in me.
“Oh, now, you can’t just throw that out there and not tell us what you’ve done. Don’t worry. No one here’s gonna tell on you. In fact, we’ve all had a few brushes with the law ourselves. Ain’t that right, fellas?”
Spider and Jimmy both just nodded their heads and smiled.
I acted like I was thinking about it for a few seconds and then I said, “Okay, I guess I’ll tell you. But you have to promise not to judge me.”
“Darlin’…look at who you’re talking to.” Sonny spread his arms out wide, suggesting the three of them were no angels themselves.
“Okay…well, when I was fifteen, I stole my grandma’s car and took it for a joy ride. I got pulled over…so that was my first offense, but I was a juvenile, so my record was expunged. Then, when I was eighteen, I stole a pack of cigarettes from a gas station in town. Got thirty days of probation for that one. I got a DUI on my twenty-first birthday and lost my license for a year.”
“Wooo hooo!” Sonny exclaimed. “We got ourselves a regular Bonnie Parker over here, fellas.”
“You said you wouldn’t judge!” I pretended to be embarrassed.
“No, no…no judgment here. Just a little surprised is all. How old are you, anyway?”
I decided to keep my age the same. After all, I couldn’t pull off anything much older than I really was. “Twenty-five. How about you?”
“Me?” Sonny pointed at himself. “Twenty-eight. But I feel forty sometimes. I’ve lived quite a life, let me tell you.”
“No, I didn’t just mean how old are you. I meant, what kinda trouble have you been in?”
“Honey…there ain’t enough hours in the day for me to tell you my story. Maybe you and I can discuss it some other time. Just the two of us.”
Spider and Jimmy looked at one another. Jimmy said. “Spider…let’s go play pool. Leave these two alone for a minute.” Spider nodded and followed Jimmy over to the pool tables.
“Well…whaddya say?” Sonny looked at me with a sincere looking grin on his face. This was crucial. Not only had I gotten his attention, but now, only the second time I’d seen him, he’d proposed we spend time alone together. I was excited, but nervous at the same time. After all, I had to remind myself, he’s a suspected murderer. It might not be safe to be alone with him just yet.
“Okay,” I finally acquiesced. “But this is not a date or anything.” I acted coy.
He held his hands up. “All right. Whatever you say. You just tell me when and where and I’ll be there.”
I thought for a moment. I was somewhat familiar with Nicholasville, since I had grown up only thirty minutes away. “How about the coffee shop across the street? Tomorrow. At nine.”
“Nine? Isn’t that a little early? This boy don’t usually get up until at least noon. My dad and I own a repair shop and I work crazy hours, darlin’. Can we make it eleven?”
“Eleven it is, then.” I got up and started to walk away from the table. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sonny. And remember…it’s not a date.”
He winked at me. “Course not.”
Chapter 8
I woke up around eight the next morning after a somewhat restless night. I was nervous about my meeting with Sonny at eleven and was pacing the polished wood floors of the little rental house. The two cups of coffee I had already consumed were not helping my nerves at all. I was about to have brunch with one of the leaders of a notorious motorcycle gang—alone.
Well, not exactly alone. I had chosen a public place in the middle of the day. Not that I thought he was going to kidnap and murder me right there in the center of town or anything, but I didn’t want him to think I was easy. If he had me alone in a private place, according to his reputation, he might try to put the moves on me and I didn’t want that to happen…not just yet, anyway. I was playing a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse. Renley and Beauford had told me about his many conquests and how he would screw anything with two legs and I didn’t want him to discard and discount me so quickly. If I played it too loose, I might wind up in a precarious situation. The goal was to gain his confidence and the only way I was going to do that was if I could get him to think of me as someone to respect. Someone he’d have to work hard to get.
After nearly wearing a hole in the flooring, it was finally time to leave for the coffee shop. I locked up the house and jumped on my bike. I pulled up in front of the coffee shop and parked along the side of the road.
No big surprise—it was eleven and Sonny wasn’t there yet. I ordered my favorite drink, a double-tall caramel macchiato and a vanilla scone, and sat down on one of the couches in the front of the coffee shop. After ten minutes had gone by, I started to worry that he had changed his mind or that maybe he was too drunk last night to remember making plans with me.
Just when I was about to give up and head back home, I heard the rumble of a motorcycle engine and turned to see Sonny parking his bike next to mine. His, I knew from my research and training, was a black-and-chrome Harley Davidson Fatboy with ape hangers—meaning, the handlebars were high up so that the driver has to reach up high to hold them. It was actually pretty awesome looking.
He walked into the coffee shop with his confident swagger and started looking around the café for me. I couldn’t help but acknowledge in my own mind that he was very good-looking and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t the teeniest bit attracted to him, but it ended there. He was my mark. He was a convicted criminal and was accused of some pretty atrocious crimes, I reminded myself.
When he spotted me near the front window of the café, he turned and walked toward me with his notorious swagger. “Hey, Trish!” He nodded once and then plopped down on the sofa next to me. I had been expecting him to sit somewhere, I don’t know, not so close to me, but he was a little too close for my comfort. I scooted to my left just enough so I could see him better.
“I’m glad you actually came,” he said.
He was glad I actually came? He was the one that I expected would flake out and not show up. I mean, a coffee shop is not quite the typical hangout for a guy like Sonny. “Of course I came.” I batted my eyelashes at him a little and smiled. “What do you want to drink?” I asked, trying to get the waitress’s attention.
“No, that’s okay,” he said. “I don’t drink coffee.”
“Then why did you agree to meet me at a coffee shop?” I teased him.
“Baby, I’d meet you anywhere you asked me to.” He leaned over and put his arm behind me along the top of the couch.
“Whoa, now. Slow your roll, there, buddy. Remember, I said this was not a date,” I said with a smile on my face. I was still trying to play a little hard-to-get.
“Okay, okay. I get it.” He scooted a little further from me, to my relief. “But why won’t you go on a date with me?”
I had to feign ignorance. I couldn’t tell him that I knew of his reputation, since my story was that I was new to town.
&n
bsp; “I don’t know. I’m just not really in a place where I could date anyone right now. I’m so busy with Dad’s estate and the house…”
“All right. Fair enough. But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop trying. Eventually, you’ll give in. They all do.”
“Oh, you’re really that confident, are you?” I looked him right in the eyes.
“Yes. I am that confident. When ya got it, ya got it. Ya know what I mean?” he said with a wry smile.
“I’d say it’s more cockiness than confidence, if you ask me,” I teased him with a shrug of my shoulder.
“Well, whatever you want to call it, I can get any girl I want, any time I want,” he said with a roguish smile.
This was going so much better than I had expected. He was enjoying our playful banter and was flirting with me relentlessly. “Really? Any girl? Prove it. See that waitress over there?”
He turned to look at the girl I had pointed out. She was young, probably early twenties. Pretty. Shy-looking.
“If you can get that girl over there to give you her phone number, I’ll go on a date with you.”
“That girl over there?” He indicated with a quick nod of his head in her direction. “She’s way too conservative for me. I can tell.” He waved my words off with a flick of his wrist.
“I didn’t say you have to marry her or anything. Just get her to give you her phone number.”
“Okay. Challenge accepted. But you have to hold up your end of the deal and go on a date with me. And you have to go no matter where I choose for the date…agreed?”
“Anywhere?” Now that made me slightly nervous. I didn’t want to get tricked into going to his house all alone. I wasn’t ready to be completely alone with him yet. Plus, if I let him think he could have me that quickly, he’d lose interest the next morning.
He must have read my mind. “Don’t worry. I’m not gonna to take you to a dungeon or lock you up in my cellar or anything like that. At least not yet.” He chuckled at his own joke and I got a cold chill. Had he actually done that before? “Ah, don’t worry. I would never do that. I’m just pulling your chain. It’ll be somewhere appropriate for a first date. I promise.”
Confessions Of An Old Lady Page 5
