The Handler (Noir et Bleu Motorcycle Club #2)

by D. R. Graham

  Without responding to the skinny guy, I picked up the tool belt and made my way over to Tomcat.

  It only took us about fifteen minutes to fix the hydraulics. Tomcat and I were standing around doing nothing when the video director walked over and said, “Uh, Tommy, we’ve got a problem.”

  “That isn’t my favorite conversation opener, Rick,” Tomcat said. He paused and exhaled, reluctant to ask for the bad news. “What’s wrong?”

  The director checked over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. “Lincoln has it in her head that she wants it to look like it’s raining when she’s on the swing. She thinks it will be sexier if she’s wet. She wants us to make it rain in here.”

  We all tilted our faces up to take in the giant trapeze-like electronic swing in the middle of the warehouse. The plumbing was set up in a way that could create the rain effect, but the swing wasn’t designed to get wet. “She’ll get electrocuted,” Tomcat said.

  “Is there a way to make it happen without electrocuting her?”

  Tomcat nodded noncommittally. “If you’ve got a couple hours to waste.”

  A quick-paced stomping stormed up behind us, and Rick cringed. We all turned. Lincoln propped her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. Her see-through bodysuit had strategically placed crystals plastered to it that I had to force myself not to stare at. Even though I had never heard of her before, I could feel without a doubt why she was a superstar. Magnetism radiated from her. It wasn’t because she was pretty, although she was. Stunning. It wasn’t because I was starstruck, either. I’d met Metallica backstage once and didn’t feel the way I felt in her presence. There was something different about her.

  “Well, Rick,” she said to the director but glanced at me. “What’s the hold up?”

  “Uh, it doesn’t look like it’s possible, Linny.” He rested his hand on her shoulder in consolation.

  “Make it possible.” She glared at Tomcat and then eyeballed me. “You guys are professionals, aren’t you? Make it happen.”

  Tomcat inhaled and removed his baseball hat to scratch his head. “The swing isn’t rigged for water. You’ll get electrocuted.”

  She rolled her eyes as if she was used to getting whatever she asked for and couldn’t believe he was saying no. “Listen. I’m not going to say it again. Re-rig it so it can be used with water.”

  “That will take several hours, and it won’t look the way it does now.”

  “That is not my problem. It’s yours.” She pointed at each of us. “You have twenty minutes.” She turned on her ridiculous platform heels. “Why is everyone so incompetent? They’re all fired if it’s not done in twenty minutes,” she spouted off to her assistants.

  “It’s going to take longer than twenty minutes,” Tomcat muttered.

  “I’m not going to work on it at all,” I said. “She can whine all she wants. It’s not worth it. Sorry, man.”

  Her stomping came to an abrupt stop, and all of her assistants tripped over themselves to scurry back to her. She turned around very slowly and glared at me. “What did you just say?”

  Tomcat scrambled and picked up the tools. The director rushed over to Lincoln and stretched his arm across her shoulder. “He didn’t say anything, Linny. Let’s get back to work.”

  She pushed his arm off her shoulder and shoved his chest to move him out of her way. She strutted over, and her eyes scanned me from toe to head. Her eyebrows wrinkled together. “What did you say?”

  I reciprocated the full body scan she had given me before I answered, “I said I’m not going to do it.”

  When she blinked, her long blue fake eyelashes touched her smooth, pale cheek. I narrowed my eyes to look past her sparkly coating and focus on something real. She seemed to feel me do it because she frowned, stepped back, and snapped, “I must have heard you wrong. People don’t talk to me like that.”

  “I think you heard me just fine.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “An asshole? Really? Why, because I don’t think it’s a good idea to send a hundred and fifty thousand volts up your ass?”

  She was definitely shocked that I wasn’t sucking up to her like everyone else, but I didn’t care. She could boss me all she wanted, I wasn’t going to compromise my work just because she was used to getting whatever she wanted.

  “Someone who knows what he’s doing could get it done safely and on time.”

  Tomcat shot me a glare, pleading with me to drop it, but I couldn’t. She’d already set me off beyond the point of no return. “Listen, sweetheart. I do know what I’m doing. If we don’t insulate it properly, the shock would fry your brain, which might not be a huge loss, but it would also singe your hair extensions, which I think everyone would agree would be tragic.”

  Her shiny pink lips dropped open for a brief second, then she clenched her jaw and planted her hands back on her hips. “Are you trying to get fired?”

  “I’m trying to make sure nobody gets killed. We can re-rig it, but it’s going to take hours, which I’ve been told costs money.” I shrugged. “It’s your money, sweetheart. I couldn’t care less.” I turned to go help Tomcat. Her shoes clomped as she followed me. “Shit,” I mumbled under my breath.

  She grabbed my arm and dug her fingers into my bicep to make me turn and face her. “Do you have a better idea, Einstein?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Forget about the rain. In fact, forget about the lame-ass swing all together.” The director slapped his palm against his forehead and buckled over as if I were killing him. “If you want to get wet, get wet in the shower. Guys will think that’s sexier than swinging in the rain.”

  “Oh, really? How do you know that?”

  I laughed. “Because I’m a guy.”

  Her gaze wandered up and down my body again. The corner of her mouth curved up almost as if she wanted to smile, but she didn’t. I raised my eyebrow and waited for her comeback. It took a while. Eventually she yelled, “Forget the swing. These idiots can’t do their jobs properly. We’ll have to do the scene in the shower.” All of her assistants scrambled away to adjust to the change in plans. Once we were alone, she stepped forward and leaned in. She smelled liked the cosmetics section in a department store. I smiled as her lips grazed my ear in a calculated way. Her right hand rested on my chest and then she whispered, “You’re fired, asshole.”

  Chapter Two

  Tomcat stood and turned his baseball hat backward as Lincoln stormed over to the dressing area. She glanced back at me once before her team surrounded her. I closed my eyes in regret for a second, then sighed. “She fired me.”

  Tomcat chuckled. “I’ll still pay you for today.”

  “Sorry. I have trouble keeping my mouth shut.”

  He shrugged as if watching me chirp off to her was worth losing the extra set of hands. “Help me crate these lines before you go.”

  Lincoln strutted out of the dressing area a few minutes later wearing only a man’s dress shirt. Every guy in the warehouse stopped what he was doing when she stepped into the rigged up shower and the cameras started rolling. She sang and shimmied around against the tiles. Her voice was actually pretty good, but I stopped listening once the fabric of the shirt became wet and see-through.

  “Jesus,” Tomcat mumbled. “I can’t watch this. She’s the same age as my daughter.” He spun around and wrapped line.

  Lincoln stepped out of the shower and unbuttoned the shirt as she walked toward the bed, revealing a black leather G-string and a studded push up bra. When she crawled up on the bed and gyrated her hips, my body reacted, and I choked out, “Whoa.”

  Tomcat peeked again briefly before he turned away. “I think that’s bordering on child pornography.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Sixteen.”

  I frowned and examined her features more closely. “No way. She’s got to be older than that.”

  “Nope. She just left the Disney channel last year.”

  A lady with a headset turned and sh
ushed us. Lincoln performed some raunchy moves on the bed that sixteen-year-olds from the Disney channel shouldn’t know. Then she looked over her shoulder and smiled at me in a sly way when she noticed that she had my attention. She sat up on her knees, pushed her wet hair back, and made a face as if she was having an orgasm.

  “Holy shit. They put this stuff on TV?” I mumbled.

  After a few more minutes of simulated masturbation moves that I couldn’t have pried my eyes away from if I tried, the director yelled, “cut,” and the music stopped. “That was perfect, Lincoln,” he shouted. “You can take a break while we set up for the next scene. You were amazing.”

  Once I recovered brain function, I exhaled, said bye to Tomcat, and left. The north exit was closer, but I went out the south exit to score one more free meal from the craft services girl.

  “Hey, you’re back so soon,” she said as she bounced up to the window.

  “Yeah, I was hoping to get something for the road.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  I smiled since it was actually not a bad deal. Two meals, a full day of pay, and I didn’t have to hang around all night. “Yeah, I’m done.”

  “He got fired,” a voice said over my shoulder. Lincoln stepped up next to me wearing a short, satiny white robe. Her mouth curled up at one corner. “I think you may have been right about the shower scene,” she admitted. “Did you think it was sexy?”

  Sexy was an understatement, but I wasn’t going to tell a sixteen-year-old that. Ignoring her, I turned to face the truck window. “I’ll take the pulled pork sandwich and a bottle of water, please.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.” Lincoln poked my arm.

  “Uh, the director liked it after only one take, so it must have been pretty good.”

  “I saw you watching. Did you like it?”

  The craft services girl handed me my order and scowled at Lincoln. I turned around. There was no way I was telling a girl who was only two years older than my sister that images of her gyrating were already permanently stored in my memory, but something vulnerable about her expression made it seem like she needed the reassurance, so I said, “I think nearly every human with a Y chromosome will like it, so it doesn’t really matter what I think.”

  She frowned and pulled off the fake eyelashes. “Does that mean you didn’t like it?”

  “Who cares what I think? I don’t know anything about music. I’d never even heard of you before today. Besides, you fired me. My opinion doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I want to hear it.”

  “Why?”

  She paused to think about the reason before she said, “Because you’ll be honest. Did you like the scene or not?”

  Her robe wasn’t tied tightly, and the fabric slid to expose a peek at the leather bra. I looked away as I thought about how to respond. I knew she wasn’t going to want to hear what I really thought about over-sexualized pop tarts, but my mouth had a brutally candid mind of its own and I had nothing to lose, so I told her the truth. “It depends what you were going for. You’ve got a pretty good voice, but nobody’s probably going to remember that. It’s hard to take you seriously as a singer when you sex it up like that.”

  Her eyes got watery before she blinked and stepped around me. She stared up at the menu in the craft services truck and scrunched up her face as if she was completely overwhelmed. “What should I get?” she asked me.

  It was an unexpected shift from how confident she had seemed inside. “Get whatever you want.”

  “I don’t know what I want. Just tell me what to get.”

  I studied her expression, wondering if she was serious. “It’s a snack, not rocket science.”

  She glared at me, then mumbled, “I’ll have a pulled pork sandwich.”

  “You can’t think for yourself?” I asked.

  Dejected, she slid down the side of the truck, pulled her knees into her chest, and hid her face in her hands. She obviously wasn’t in any state to handle constructive feedback, and I felt guilty for assuming she was strong enough to hear it in the first place.

  I picked up my sandwich and water bottle, pausing to consider my options. I knew I could walk away and let one of her people build her back up with inflated compliments, but it was pretty clear that what she wanted to hear wasn’t going to come from the ass-kissers she was surrounded by. Eventually, I decided what the hell. It wasn’t as if I was ever going to see her again.

  “I liked the shower scene. It was the perfect amount of sexy and classy.”

  She lifted her head and smiled a little bit after she checked my expression to make sure I wasn’t teasing her.

  “And the gyrations on the bed were insanely hot, but you should save moves like that for when you’re with your boyfriend in private. The public hasn’t earned the privilege to know you that intimately. You’re talented enough to sell records without selling out, so stick to sexy and classy.”

  She appeared to be both surprised and pleased, which I figured was a good time to take off. I nodded my goodbye and left her sitting against the truck.

  “Cain!” she called as I made my way across the grass toward the parking lot.

  I stopped and turned, curious how she knew my name.

  “Don’t go yet.” Her voice was weak, as if she wasn’t positive that she should have said it.

  “Why?”

  She rocked a bit and chewed at her fingernails. “I don’t know.” Her leg jiggled nervously. “I don’t know. I’m sorry I went off on you. I’m losing it. You’re not fired anymore.”

  “Tomcat’s going to pay me for the day. I don’t need to hang around.”

  “At least stay until you finish your sandwich.”

  The craft services girl leaned her head out the window of the truck, chewing gum with her mouth open. She gawked at Lincoln who trembled as if she was freezing cold. Her posture made her seem broken. It reminded me of Huck after our dad was murdered, so I knew exactly how fragile she felt. I sighed, then walked over and sat down next to her with my back against the truck. I removed the plastic wrap from my sandwich.

  “How do you know my name?” I asked.

  “I asked around.” She hugged her legs tighter into her chest and rested her chin on her knee. “Do you really think I have a good voice?”

  I chewed for a while before I answered, “I don’t know anything about music, but it sounded decent to me.”

  She tilted her head to look at me. “Are you always brutally honest?”

  “No, not always.”

  “So, you lie sometimes?”

  “Depends on what’s best for the situation.”

  “With me, you felt it was best to tell the truth?”

  I shrugged, still not exactly sure why I said anything at all. “I guess.”

  “You eat fast.”

  I swallowed the last bite of my sandwich and smiled because I had inhaled it faster than normal. “I must have been hungry. I worked pretty hard today.” I shoved her shoulder gently to tease her. “Until I got fired.”

  She smiled, but it didn’t erase the sadness in her eyes. It was the exact same way Huck smiled. Knowing the tragedy behind Huck’s smile made me wonder what made Lincoln that kind of sad. I decided to stay and keep her company, not that I needed more stress in my life, but I hoped someone would do the same for Huck if she ever needed it.

  After just sitting quietly for a while, I asked, “Do you want to talk about whatever it is that’s bothering you?”

  Her eyes met mine and cautiously studied me as if she was assessing my motivation for asking.

  “You don’t have to tell me. I just thought you looked like you needed someone to talk to.”

  The south entrance door opened and a bald guy in a suit stuck his head out. “Lincoln, sweetie, they’re ready for you to do your costume change.”

  She didn’t answer or even acknowledge that he spoke to her.

  He glanced at the craft services girl and then at me, trying to piece together why it looked
like Lincoln had a meltdown. “What’s wrong, Linny?” He walked over, crouched beside her, and tucked her hair behind her ears.

  The tears that she’d been fighting won the battle and ran down her cheeks. It took several deep breaths before she was able to say, “I need a break, Hal.”

  “Okay. Okay. It’s okay. Take all the time you need.” He pulled his phone out of the inside breast pocket of his coat.

  Lincoln sprung to her feet while he wasn’t looking and tugged my hand to get me to stand and follow her behind a palm tree. “I need to get out of here. Take me with you.”

  “Uh, no.” I eyed Hal, then looked back at her, concerned why she felt she needed to run away.

  Her fingers dug into my hand desperately. “Please.”

  “No.” Getting mixed up in the middle of a celebrity shit show was absolutely the last thing I needed, and it wasn’t like I knew where to take her anyway.

  “You have to help me. I need some time off. I’m going crazy.” She glanced over her shoulder nervously. “Please. I’ll pay you.”

  “I don’t want your money. You don’t need me to help you take some time off. Just ask for it.” She started crying again, and her lower lip trembled. Hal eyeballed us while he talked on the phone. He seemed pissed at me, not her.

  “I can’t take time off. I’ve been doing this since I was little and there is always an excuse for why I can’t. You have to get me out of here or I’m going to kill myself.”

  Jesus. “Don’t say that. It can’t be that bad. Just tell the guy you need time off.”

  She glanced at Hal and bit her bottom lip. “I’m too nervous to tell him.”

  My eyes narrowed, wondering if she had a legitimate reason to be afraid of him. “Does he hurt you?”

  “No. God, no. I’m just scared to upset him.”

  I laughed. “You weren’t too scared to tear a strip off me and tell me I was fired.”