by Tia Siren
Colt saw Sherry but didn’t move to come speak with her. That was okay with Sherry; she wanted to say what she had to say in front of a crowd so they would all know. Maybe his friends would talk sense into Colt if he reacted the way she feared. She walked to his table and the talking stopped. Every man and woman there looked at her.
“I’m pregnant,” she said, looking only at Colt. From the corner of her eye, she could see some mouths drop open.
Colt just laughed. “Congratulations.”
“It’s yours.”
“I’m too young and good looking to be a father,” Colt cracked, and the other Vipers all laughed.
“I need your help.”
“I’ll pay for the abortion.”
“I’m keeping it,” Sherry said, anger rising in her voice.
“I don’t care. I won’t have anything to do with it. You’re probably just lying, trying to get me to take you back. It was just about sex, Love. I like to fuck.”
Tears stung Sherry’s eyes, salty and hot, and she realized she had been an idiot. Of course he would be like that. He wouldn’t ever do the right thing. She turned and hurried out of the bar.
6
Days passed and Colt felt worse and worse. He had played the part he was supposed to in front of his friends. He had said what he was expected to say, not what he had really wanted to say. He’d now had a few days to focus on what Sherry had said. She was pregnant. It was his. He could be a father, maybe a better one than his own old man. Surely he could do better than that asshole ever had. He could teach the kid right and wrong, be there for him or her—like his own father never had been.
He made up his mind and went to see Sherry. He knocked on her door one evening, but she didn’t answer. He knew she was home; her car was parked in the lot behind the apartment.
“Sherry, I want to apologize,” he said.
She didn’t speak to him, didn’t even let him know she was there. Eventually he left.
He came back the next night, and then the next. A week of that went by, and on the ninth straight evening of him coming to speak to her, she let him in. She was dressed in sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt. Her belly was already showing.
“What?” she asked as he stood in her living room and she sat on the couch. He rubbed his arms. He was heavily tattooed, and he suddenly doubted he looked like most fathers.
“I want to make it work,” he said.
“No.”
“Please.”
Sherry sighed. “I don’t need you.”
“I fell in love with you. That’s why I ended it. I fell in love with you and I freaked out,” Colt said.
“That’s nice,” Sherry said. Her face was one of anger and sadness, a perfect mix.
“Come with me to Earl’s,” he said. “I want you there for something.”
“You aren’t serious,” Sherry said.
“Please?”
She sighed but relented. She drove her car, and he led the way on his motorcycle. They went inside, and the Vipers who were there drinking were surprised to see them together.
Colt stepped to the head of the table. Sherry hung back, her arms over her belly protectively.
“I’m resigning as president of the Vipers,” Colt said, and the other members gasped.
“Why?” Davey asked.
“I want to be a father. I want to be with the woman I love,” Colt said, turning to look at Sherry. “It’s time I do the right thing. I love you all, I always will, but sometimes…you just have to grow up and do what’s right.”
The Vipers begged him not to go, and they angrily indicated that Sherry was behind it all, but Colt told them to shut up and deal with his decision. He and Sherry walked out of the bar. She turned on him by her car and jabbed a finger in his face.
“You think that’s enough?” she asked. “Enough to make me forgive what you said? How you acted? Colt, you have to be real.”
“Rupert,” the man said softly.
“What?”
“My name is Rupert.”
Sherry looked at him, her mouth open wide. “Rupert?”
“I know, it’s stupid. It was my great grandfather’s name. I never liked it.”
Sherry burst into laughter. “It makes you sound British.”
“I know, I know.”
“I see why you go by Colt.”
“Are you going to keep making fun of me?”
Sherry stopped laughing, but she went back to looking stern. “You deserve it.”
“I know I do.”
“I love you too, by the way.”
Colt smiled, and Sherry stepped into his arms. They kissed.
They were married around Halloween, with a small service that included her family and friends from Oklahoma and his big biker friends with leather vests and with long gray beards.
The baby came six days before Christmas, and Colt teased Sherry, making it seem as though he wanted the little boy to be named Rupert like him.
“I don’t think so, Rupert,” Sherry said from the hospital bed, holding the little pink baby to her chest.
“At least it’s not a girl,” Colt said. “I couldn’t deal with calling my daughter Love.”
“Come on, be serious. Help me think of a name.”
“How about Viper?”
Sherry laughed. “Are you ever going to grow up?”
“Did you think I would ever grow up this much?” Colt asked, and Sherry grinned and shook her head.
“No,” she said.
Colt leaned down and kissed her, and then he pressed his lips to his son’s tiny forehead. He still looked mean, covered in tattoos, and he favored jeans and T-shirts, and his anger rose up sometimes, but looking down at the woman he loved and their son, Colt knew he would never go back to the man he had been.
*****
THE END
Bad Boy Biker SEAL
1
Rebecca Roberts loved the feeling of the air on her face, whipping her long blond hair behind her, the bike rumbling and roaring between her legs. She was riding alone, as she had so often in the last few months. She wore her colors on her back, her club’s logo, a skull with two crossed hammers beneath it, on her black zip-up hoodie. She had never been one for the leather vest, and these days a lot of the younger members were putting the logo on shirts or jackets instead of on black leather. Riding in a motorcycle club was evolving—for the first time in decades.
Of course, some things would never change. Rebecca knew that firsthand. She was beautiful, just shy of twenty-five, with long blond hair and blue eyes. She was petite, with well-rounded hips and large breasts. Every man who saw her wanted her. If they were into bikes, they wanted her even more. There was just something sexy about a woman who could fix up a Harley, and no woman could do that better than Rebecca. She had been serving as the Hammers’ mechanic since she was twenty. She loved the work, and even as the rest of her life crumbled down around her, she found solace in sitting in her garage, her hands black and greasy, her mind on one thing: a bike.
Jason Alder was pushing thirty, a large man with muscles growing upon his muscles. He was good looking, with an angular face and a close-cropped beard, his hair black but with flecks of gray already making an appearance. He had been the leader of the Hammers for three years, and a member for a lot longer than that. The Hammers were based out of Oklahoma City, where Rebecca had been born and raised. Her father had been a member and had taught her everything she knew. He had died when she was only fifteen, shot by the police after the Hammers and another local crew had a massive dustup that led to a total of seven people dead, including one cop and one civilian who was simply in the wrong bar at the wrong time.
Jason was the kind of guy who thought that since he was boss, he should get what he wanted. And what he wanted was Rebecca. Her last serious relationship had ended when she was eighteen, and though there had been a string of men since then, when Jason went for her, she didn’t put up much of a fight.
The relationship
had lasted a little over a year. The sex had been good, but everything else had been bad. She had really fallen for him, and he had told her he loved her, but by the time she found out he had cheated on her for the third time, she knew he was full of shit.
Rebecca had been crushed. She’d left Jason, and he had seemed determined to make her life hell. He had yelled at her, put her down in front of everyone, and managed to turn most of the club against her.
“Why don’t you just leave?” he’d asked her one night.
“I love the bikes,” she had said quietly. He had laughed at her, and she had cried.
She had taken to just cruising around a lot. She worked during the day, keeping the Hammers’ bikes in good condition. As evening came on, she would ride well into the night. That night it was almost three in the morning before she returned home to find Jason waiting for her, sitting atop his bike in her driveway.
Rebecca lived in the same house she had grown up in. After her father had died, her mother stuck around for a few years, but as soon as Rebecca turned eighteen her mother split, heading back to Florida, where she was from. Rebecca hadn’t seen her since. She had almost been moved to Florida three years before she turned eighteen, but she had made a deal with her mother: stay in school and her mother wouldn’t move her. It had been the only thing that had kept Rebecca in class.
“What do you want, Jason?” Rebecca asked as she rolled her bike past her ex and opened the garage door. She parked inside and then closed the door by hand, slapping a padlock close.
“Call me boss. If you won’t leave the club, at least respect me,” the man said, throwing one leg over his bike as he climbed off it.
“No one else calls you boss.”
“The girls I fuck do.”
“We don’t fuck anymore,” Rebecca said, rolling her eyes and pulling her house key from the pocket of her tight jeans.
“Look, I just came over to tell you that I’ve been missing you, and I think we should put this behind us and go into your bedroom.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Rebecca said, shaking her head. She unlocked her door and stepped into her modest home, turning to stand in the doorway.
“You aren’t going to invite me in?” Jason asked.
“No.”
“You’re a bitch. That’s why you’ll always be alone. You run off every man who comes to you. Or in you.”
“Fuck you, Jason,” Rebecca said, and she went to slam the door, but he called out, and what he said made her freeze.
“Hull is back.”
“No, he isn’t.”
“Yeah. I hear he is, and he wants in.”
Hull was the first man Rebecca had ever loved. His name was Christopher Hullard, but everyone just called him Hull. He had been in the Hammers since he was sixteen, and he had been fast-tracked to become leader. His own father had been the leader, but he’d been nearing retirement age, and Hull had been his last kid out of five, and his only son. Hull and Rebecca had fallen in love, and when it ended the way it had, he decided to join the Navy. He became a SEAL, and Rebecca had been sure she would never see him again. Two years after he left, his father died, and he didn’t even come back for the funeral.
“You going to let him in?”
“He wants my job, so fuck him,” Jason said. “Just telling you, because he probably still hates you for what you did to him. I was coming to protect you.”
“He wouldn’t do anything to me,” Rebecca said softly, her voice fading into the dark night air.
“War changes people,” Jason said with a shrug.
“I’m going to bed,” Rebecca said suddenly, wanting the man to leave.
“All right. Weasel is bringing his bike over tomorrow, told him you’d take a look at his gearshift. It’s sticking.”
“All right,” Rebecca said, and she shut the door.
She went and filled her tub with water so hot that steam rose from it in her cool bathroom. She disrobed and sank into the water. She was tired, but her mind was racing. She couldn’t stop thinking about Hull. She wondered if it was true, him being back in Oklahoma City. And if it was, she wondered if she would see him. She had been the one to end their relationship, after a pregnancy scare. She had been young, hadn’t wanted to go down that road, but he had seemed so ready to do so. He had been twenty, two years older. He was going to be the president of the largest motorcycle club in Oklahoma. He wanted to marry her, to be a father. It had all scared her. She had cut him off, and he had become so heartbroken that he ran to the military, risking his life every day just to be three thousand miles from her.
Rebecca sat in the bath until the water was lukewarm, and then she stayed a bit longer until it was downright chilly. Finally, she climbed from the tub and dried off before heading to bed. As she drifted off to sleep, she thought about Hull, and she wondered if she would see him.
2
Rebecca didn’t have to wonder if she would see the first man she had ever loved for long. The next day she was working on Weasel’s bike. Weasel was a Hammer, a big bear of a man with a wiry white beard and long hair he kept in a simply ponytail. He was in his sixties, and he looked the part of grizzled biker. But he was a friendly guy, with a booming laugh and a warm smile, and he was one of the few Hammers who hadn’t given Rebecca shit since breaking things off with Jason.
The big man had brought his bike over in the back of a beat up pickup truck in the morning, and then he’d spent an hour or so bullshitting with Rebecca in the garage before he left. She had promised him his bike would be ready by six, and then she had gotten to work.
Just after noon, she realized she would need a couple of parts she didn’t have on hand, so she went inside to wash up and then headed to a local motorcycle shop. As she stood by the counter in the shop, waiting for Dave, the man who ran the place, to grab the parts she needed from the back, her stomach rumbled. She would need to grab lunch on the way home.
Embarrassingly, her stomach was so loud that someone behind her heard it.
“Hungry?” a male voice asked, and Rebecca turned around. Her mouth fell open. There, standing behind her, was Hull. He looked the same, but entirely different somehow too. His head was practically shaved, just had small dark dots to show he wasn’t really bald. He had always been muscular, but now he gave Jason a run for his money. He was tall, and he wore a gray T-shirt that was stretched tight across his muscular chest.
“Hull,” Rebecca said, feeling foolish. Even as his girlfriend she had never called him anything else. No one called him anything else.
“I should have known I’d find you here.”
“You were looking for me?”
Hull smiled, an easy thing, kind but sarcastic. “No. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Oh,” Rebecca said, feeling a burst of heat on her cheeks as she blushed. “I heard you were back.”
“I wanted to see everyone. I think I’m going to stick around.”
“You going to join back up?”
“With the Hammers?”
“Yeah,” Rebecca said, leaning back against the counter.
“I think so,” Hull said, and he nodded. “It’s good to see you.”
Rebecca nodded.
“So you’re hungry. We could grab a bite to eat if you have the time.”
“All right,” Rebecca said. “I’m working on a bike, though, so it will have to be fast.”
“Did you ride here?”
Of course she did. Rebecca nodded.
“Me too, but my bike needs some work. It’s been sitting in a storage locker while I’ve been gone. We could grab something and take it back to your place if you don’t mind sharing your garage.”
Rebecca nodded, but she couldn’t believe her ears. Hull was back, and he was talking to her like an old friend, and he wanted to come use her tools. They got the parts they needed and then rode over to a small burger place, taking a couple of greasy paper bags back to her place. She opened the garage door and they rolled the bikes out into t
he sun, where they ate and worked at the same time. Their conversation was easy, like two old friends touching base.
“So what happened with the Navy?”
Hull shrugged. He was bent over his bike, a few fries sticking out of his mouth. He chewed them and swallowed before answering. “It wasn’t what I wanted to do forever. I put in my time, felt like I should go.”
“Back to the world of motorcycles, huh?”
“It’s more than just that; you know it is. The club…the club my father was a big part of… I want to steer it back to the right path. Since Jason’s been running the show…I don’t know. I’ve only been back a few days, but some people aren’t happy.”
That was a fair enough assessment. The club had always done well in the area, and they made a lot of money doing bad things, but Jason seemed to think being a boss meant he needed to entertain people. Everything was big, flashy. He brought attention down on the Hammers—attention they didn’t need.
They spent a couple hours working on the bikes and talking. It was almost as if no time had passed at all, even though it had been five years since they’d last seen one another.
A little after six Weasel came by, and he and Hull took a few minutes to get reacquainted. Then the fat man loaded his bike into the back of his truck and drove off.
“Well, I guess I can call it a night,” Hull said, wiping his hands on an old rag as Rebecca pulled the garage door down and locked it. “Mind if I wash my hands?”
“No. Come on in,” Rebecca said, leading the way. “You remember where the bathroom is?”
She turned to look at Hull, expecting him to be heading toward the bathroom, but instead he was standing directly behind her. She went to speak, but he leaned forward, placing his hands on her hips and bending so that he could kiss her.
She shut her eyes and parted her lips to his tongue. He explored her mouth, and he tasted like the mint gum he was almost always chewing. She wrapped her arms around him without even meaning to do it.
The kiss broke, and Rebecca opened her eyes. The man she had once loved was looking down at her.
