“Get used to the temperature because it’s not going to warm up anytime soon.” I reply.
The more I look at Adam the more I’m attracted to him; especially when he’s not talking. The verbal thing kind of ruins it for me. And as I gaze into his eyes I realize just how badly I want a relationship with a good guy. For some reason unbeknownst to me I always pick bad boys, as evidenced by my last relationship of two years. I want Adam to be different; but different in certain ways. Of course I want a man that can protect and take care of me and that’s probably part of the bad boy outlaw biker attraction. If I’m dating a biker I certainly won’t have to worry about my safety.
A part of me wonders why I always end up with men who view me as their personal property; I mean what’s up with that? Does that mean I have this latent submission fantasy thing going on that I’m not consciously aware of? Do I really want to be dominated by men? Come on, Doormat after all is not my middle name and that’s why it really gets me when bikers refer to their girlfriends and wives as their old Ladies. I know that the women consider it a great honor, but how many of them are nurses? I suspect most of them have career paths that begin and end with being Mrs. Biker Old Lady.
My eyes come to rest on Adam’s mouth and even though he is talking it’s really not registering. I am lost in the sensual movement of his full dark lips framing his perfect white teeth. Every once in a while I get a flash of tongue and suddenly I’m wondering what his would feel like on my skin. Will it send chills up and down my spine or just feel like a wet piece of meat? Suddenly I can’t wait to find out.
Then I remember Friday night when he showed up in my ER after being nearly butt shot. Every curve of his ass is burned into my brain. OMG! I just about forgot the near face full I got when he turned around to give me the full Monty. Actually his wasn’t even near full. It was just up real close and real personal and I can still smell that heavy masculine scent of his that just permeates the air around him.
“Are you gonna eat that thing or are you just going to sit there playing with it?”
I jump as the sound of his voice finally penetrates my ever present self- obsession. I quickly extract the long slender dill pickle from my mouth and drop it on the tray in shock. I do hope I was just sliding in in my mouth or sliding it out and not both actions in some kind of repetitive fashion.
I grab several fingers full of curly fries and jam them into my mouth so I can spare myself the embarrassment of speaking.
“Oh now that’s cute, but it still won’t erase the image of the pickle from my mind. Do I dare ask what it is you were thinking just then?”
I look up from my food but I can’t seem to make my eyes move up past his chest. Of course I’m not complaining or anything. He’s got a fabulous chest. In fact he’s just mister fabulous all around; except for his biker attitude. I can’t help but wonder if he knows the effect he has on women. I say women because I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one here that has fallen under his spell.
“So who was that guy who tuned up your date last night?” Adam suddenly asks.
I have this idea he already knows the answer to the question so I should probably answer truthfully.
“He’s my ex. I actually thought he long since disappeared, it’s been so long since I’ve seen him. He’s a member of the Cycle Demo-”
“Psycho Demons,” He says, finishing my sentence. Yeah I saw the cut. Next time I find that guy I’m gonna take his cut for a trophy. I think I’ll have it made into the seat on my bike; appropriate don’t you think?”
“What are you doing here Adam? I said I don’t date bikers anymore. I don’t know how I can make it any clearer to you.”
“I know what you said Kari, and I also know what your body’s been saying so at this point I just don’t know who to listen to.”
“Try listening to the verbal cues. It’ll keep you out of jail!”
“How’s your friend by the way?” He asks out of the blue.
Suddenly I’m pissed all over again. “Oh my god, how can you be asking that? See, every time you open that mouth of yours you just piss me off.”
“I can think of several things I can do with my open mouth and none of them will end up with you being pissed afterwards. Well, I have heard of girls losing control and pissing during their orgasms but I get the idea you’re way too tightly wound to let that sort of thing happen.”
“Gross! You really caused a huge problem between me and Jenny. You had to let her think there was something going on between us didn’t you?”
“Well there was cupcake. Your body was screaming with desire! I’m surprised you couldn’t tell.”
“There was no desire! Just a little annoyance and a lot of anger. I couldn’t wait to get you out of my ER.”
“Well you are right about that,” Adam replied. “You couldn’t wait to get me out because your body was giving you away and you couldn’t take it anymore.”
“You have such an overgrown sense of self-importance you can’t see reality when it comes to women!”
I’ve had enough. I push the remainder of my cold food away from me and look around for a waitress. I can’t see one anywhere. I stand up.
“You ruined my lunch so you can pay for it too.” I announce.
Without waiting for a reply I leave the booth and exit the restaurant. I can’t believe how crazy this guy drives me; it’s illogical. Rather than just get in my car and speed off I decide to just take a nice long walk. There’s still hours left of daylight, and it’s probably in the low seventies; perfect weather for a walk. Hopefully the exercise will get my mind off Adam. By the time I walk down to the end of the business section of Main Street I find myself thinking about Michael and wondering if there is any chance for a second date; after he heals a bit more that is. With more pleasant thoughts filling my head I turn around and decide to return to the lot and retrieve my car.
On impulse I decide to call Jenny and test the waters. Maybe she has calmed down enough to hear my side of the story. She answers right away and that gives me some hope.
“Jenny, I’m so glad I caught you. For a minute there I was afraid you wouldn’t answer.”
“I wasn’t going to but my thumb accidently hit the little green button when I was looking to see who was calling me.”
“Oh…”
Pregnant pause…
“So…you called me for a reason I presume?” Jenny asks.
“Oh yeah. I just wanted you to know there is nothing at all going on between me and that Adam guy.”
“But you like bikers.”
“Do you not remember babysitting me after it all came apart with my last biker boyfriend and how I swore never to fall for another biker for as long as I live. Remember that pact we made to each other?”
“Yeah yeah of course I remember it all and on some level I knew you really didn’t have anything to do with Adam; it was all him, but I got a little carried away. So you’re really not into him then? You wouldn’t even give him the time of day right?”
“Yes… of course Jenny. He means nothing to me.”
I can tell by the sound of her voice that she is finally coming around and my best friend is back and it feels good.
“So what have you been up to? Have you eaten yet? Maybe we can get a bite.”
“No I haven’t eaten yet,” I lie through my teeth. “Let’s get a bite.”
“Bite of what?” Asks a male voice over my shoulder.
I look up and the color drains from my face as I turn around to face Adam once more. This can’t be happening to me. In his hands he’s holding a small pink shopping bag. I realize belatedly that it’s mine and I must have left it in the restaurant when I ran out.
“Who you talking to?” Adam asks, extending the bag to me.
“Who is that?” I hear Jenny asking me.
“Who is that?” Adam asks.
“Is that another guy?” Jenny hollers.
“Are you talking to a guy?” Adam demands.
“It’s just some girl.” I reply.
“Just some girl?” Jenny huffs.
“You sure it’s a girl,” Adam replies. “It sounds like a guy.”
“Are you talking to Adam again?” Jenny accuses me.
“You’ve got another boyfriend?” Adam alleges.
“How can I have another when I don’t even have one in the first place? I ask, rapidly losing my patience.
“I wanna talk to him!” Adam demands as he reaches for my phone.
“Lemme talk to that loser,” Jenny shouts in my other ear.
I don’t resist as Adam takes the phone from my hand. “Man, I am so gonna kick your ass!” Adam seethes into the phone.
“Keep your grubby paws off her!” My future ex-best friend in the whole world demands.
I can’t believe this. I give Adam my fiercest glare at my disposal and stick an index finger in each of my ears and resort to childish gestures.
“La la la la…I can still hear you guys… la la la…”
He gives me a look I can’t quite interpret then turns his back to me and takes a couple steps in the opposite direction. I do the same until I can’t hear either of them. I take a seat on the park bench and decide to wait it out here.
Five minutes later Adam joins me and hands me my phone back. “I don’t think she wants to be your friend anymore,” He explains.
I put the phone to my ear. “So what now?” I ask before I realize no one is on the other end of the line.
Thoroughly disgusted I pocket my phone. If I don’t have jenny to talk to my phone is pretty useless. I don’t have a lot of friends who call me on it. It’s mostly for talking to Jenny and for emergencies.
“Thanks for ruining my life,” I say to Adam.
“I fail to see how my entry into your little circle of life can be so ruinous.” He exclaims.
I sit here for a second trying to come up with a scathing retort but nothing comes to mind. Just when I think I have this guy pegged he does something that just totally throws me off the scent. I would have figured him for an uneducated lout except that every now and then the way he talks, his vocabulary and sentence structure makes his sound like an educated…a college educated man. My ex was your typical biker with an 8th grade education and a horribly abusive upbringing. He wouldn’t dare use a two syllable word if a one syllable word would suffice. Even his choice of swear words were one syllable even at the expense of proper grammar. He would say to me, “You’re such a fuck.” Instead of saying, “You’re such a fucker.” One time he actually called a guy a sob; instead of calling him an S.O.B.
Finally I can’t stand it. I either have to get up and leave or give my ‘wanna be boyfriend’ a piece of my mind. I decide a verbal lashing is in order.
“I don’t know where you get off calling me your old lady, but I’m no one’s anything and certainly not an old lady. And I’ll never be your anything. I dated a biker, played house with a biker, been there done that and never wanna do it again. So unless you plan of getting a lobotomy and burning your cut, you and me; we’ll never be you and me! You don’t fit in my world and I sure as hell don’t fit in yours. I’m a UC Berkeley educated trauma nurse and I make life and death decisions every day at work while you tinker with bikes. Last week an ambulance pulled up to my ER with a 9 year old boy who’d just been hit by a car on his bike. The driver hadn’t even touched his brakes when he struck the kid doing close to sixty. To make matters worse his mom piles out of the ambulance with him. She takes one look at me, tears streaming down her face and says to me.
“Please doctor, save my little boy. He’s all I’ve got!”
“Do you even have the faintest idea what kind of pressure that put on me? He was dying right before my eyes and both our ER docs were working codes so it was up to me to save her boy. And I swear to god Adam, in that moment I would have given my life to trade places with that boy if it would have saved him. We did everything we could that day. Losing him wasn’t the worse part though mister biker. I had to tell the boy’s mother that her son just died. I had to do it. She placed her faith and trust in me so it was my responsibility to be the person to tell her we…I failed.”
I pause in my story and look up at Adam. He looks visibly shaken.
“The worst part is….was… when I brought her into one of the nursing offices and she just started shaking. She was trembling so badly I had to sit her down on the couch before I could even tell her. I think maybe she thought it bad news like; her son was alive but would be paralyzed from the waist down or something like that. But when I looked at her through my own tears, the moment I said, ‘I’m sorry…’ she began screaming in anguish. I have never in my life felt such intense pain. I swear I felt a lightning bolt strike the top of my head, and it went through my body, and when it hit my knees they buckled and I had to sit next to her to keep from collapsing. Then I held her while she screamed and screamed. That’s my life Adam and you just don’t fit.”
I look up again and to my shock and amazement, tears are streaming down his face and I wonder, have I completely misread him? Embarrassed, I look down again to give him privacy. Once more I think, there is more to this man than I realize. I look up again when I feel him stirring next to me. His expression is a little hard to read now, but I think he is actually a little angry. He stands up and looks down at me.
“We are far more alike then you imagine Nurse Kari. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. We’ll chalk it up to you having bad experiences with your ex, but if you ever treat me again like you have the last couple days then you’ll never have the chance to see just how right we are for each other. Some people believe that there is only one perfect match for each person and if you blow it with that person you’ll never experience true love. Other people believe that there is more than just one person for each and you can find love in more than one person. I think that’s horseshit! I’m your ONE Kari, and I hope you figure that out before it’s too late, I really do; for both our sakes.”
Having said his piece he turns his broad shoulders and muscular back on me and walks away. Despite myself I get this distinct ache in my gut as I watch him go and I wonder if he is right. How can an outlaw biker be my one person in the world who is my perfect love match? If he is…what’s that say about me?
CHAPTER FIVE
You Have Gotta be Kidding Me!
Despite what I told Adam about me making life and death decisions on a daily basis, the last several days at work are pretty uneventful which is okay but to tell the truth, I could have done with the distraction that a real emergency creates. Turns out I don’t have to wait too long for my distraction.
Thursday Evening…
I’ve got a couple days off so I decide to do some shopping. We’re having this bizarre cold spell lately and my normal Gore-Tex jacket is just not cutting it. I need to find something with a few more layers on it. Cave Junction doesn’t have a lot of homeless people but on days like today I can’t help but feel sorry for the ones we do have. According to my Yahoo page the temp last night reached forty degrees. How someone can sleep outside when it’s that cold I’ll never know.
By the time I leave The North Face store it’s maybe 7:30 and it feels like forty degrees already. I start to head over to my car when I notice some kind of commotion outside Zachary’s Pizza. There are maybe a dozen people around and there’s a woman and a little boy sitting on layers of cardboard. Next to them is a shopping cart piled with what’s left of their belongings. I walk up in the middle of a conversation the woman is having with a police officer who seems a bit skeptical.
“I just took my boy inside to get him something to eat ‘cause he hasn’t had anything all day and when I come out someone’s taken our only blanket. You have to get it back for me.” She pleads with the police officer.
“You had a blanket? What kind of blanket?” He asks.
“It was one of those thick heavy ones made from alpaca so it kept us both warm at night. Now we’re gonna freeze.”
&nb
sp; “Well, I can file a report but if no one saw anyone take it…” He trails off, searching the faces gathered around. No one either confirms or denies that this lady had a blanket before she went into the store.
“What am I supposed to do with that?” She asks, clearly angry. “Is that supposed to keep us warm tonight? You’re useless. How can you be a police officer when you don’t help. If I had a Lexus and someone just stole it you’d be all over it and you’d make sure you caught the thief.”
“Well that’s quite a bit more serious than some blanket that may or may not exist.”
“Hey, wrong is wrong whether it’s a car or a blanket or a human life. You’re the most uncaring pig I have ever met.”
Oh shit. That’s not good. The few people still standing out in the cold are moving off and pretty soon it’s just me, the cop, and the homeless woman and child.
“You know,” the cop begins. “I’m a little concerned about your ability to take care of this little boy.”
“Wait…wait a second I didn’t mean that.” The woman is beginning to panic; and for good reason. “Where do you live?” He asks her.
“What d-do you mean… I live h-here.”
“What did your son have for breakfast and lunch today?” He asks.
“Well… he had pizza just now…”
“Breakfast and lunch ma’am.” The officer repeats sternly.
“Well we didn’t have the money until just now so he ate three meals worth just a bit ago.” She replies.
Her son who must be about 7 or 8 is hugging his mom around her waist fiercely. It’s as if he senses something really bad is about to happen.
“You can’t skip meals then make up for it later. That’s not the way nutrition works in the body. Where are you going to sleep tonight?”
“I-I don’t know… p-probably h-here I-I guess.” She is so scared now she’s stammering as she speaks.
She knows that things are going sideways very fast and she’s probably wondering how things got from an investigation into who took her only blanket to her ability to care for her son being questioned.
Edge of Ashes (Sons of Ash Motorcycle Club) Page 4
