After they ate and the employees went back to work, my uncle asked, “Are you doing okay, Olivia?”
“I’m good,” I lied.
“Okay, I know Dax is out. He’s not bothering you, is he?”
Not like you think. “No, he’s not bothering me. Terrance and I are having some troubles though so don’t worry if he comes around looking for me. I won’t be staying with him at the apartment any longer.”
“Do you have a place to stay?”
“Yeah, I’m staying with a friend,” I lied again. “I should be going,” I told him. I wanted to be with people I cared about, but I was tired of dumping on them. Maybe this one I should handle on my own.
He kissed my cheek and said, “Call me if you need anything, okay?”
“I will. Thank you for always being there for me.”
“Bye sweetie, take care.”
“Bye,” I said. I went out to my car and sat for ten minutes, trying to figure out where to go.
I finally started the car and drove around for a while, trying to clear my head and figure out what I was going to do. I ended up at the park in the foothills where Dax and I used to go all the time. I sat under our tree and tried to let my mind wonder back to the good days. The times when it seemed like we had the whole world at our fingertips.
I lay back against the stump and thought back over my life since I met Dax. The conclusion I came to was that it was all good and headed in the right direction, before I walked away from him. I abandoned him and I betrayed him by being with Terrance. I was surprised he would have anything to do with me at all.
I thought back to the night before and the way he had just taken me into his arms and fucked me and let me stay. I wanted to believe it was because he still had the same feelings for me as I did for him. I am bright enough to know however that with men, sometimes the feelings they have below the belt are the ones that matter most. I guess the real test would be if he would take me in now, after we already had our reunion roll in the hay.
I pushed myself up off the ground and looked at my watch. It was getting late in the evening and it was the middle of the week so the bar shouldn’t be too crowded. It usually started breaking up by eight or nine on the weekdays. I drove over there and wondered if Dax would take me in or turn me away. No one could blame him if he just told me to go. It would be sweet revenge for what I had done to him.
Even though it was late, I was surprised and happy to find Cookie and Buster were the only two in the bar. I smiled at Cookie and went as fast as I could past Buster, hoping he would keep talking and not see me. I was carrying my duffel bag and a backpack. I could just hear the rumor mill starting up as soon as Buster got wind. I went to the room where Dax had been staying and I knocked. The room wasn’t big, if he was in there, I’m sure he heard me. I tried the door and it was locked. Frustrated, I turned around and saw Dax walking towards me down the hall.
He grinned. That was a good sign. He had the cocky look about him that he had since he got home. It was a new look, but it was kind of sexy.
“Hey gorgeous, you back for more?”
I raised an eyebrow. It must have been when it registered with him that I was holding my bags because he said, “Oh, shit.” That was probably not a good sign.
I smiled, not knowing what else to do and said, “Surprise, I dropped in for a visit.” I was met by a look of distress and I suddenly thought I had made a mistake in coming there. He hadn’t said anything and he was still looking at me so I said, “I left Terrance and I didn’t really have anywhere else to go. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, looking glad that I had left Terrance at least. “You can stay here, of course. We’ll just have to figure out a long-term plan for you soon. We can’t have you living in the back of a bar indefinitely.”
He opened the door with his key and let me in. I dropped my bags against the wall and we looked at each other. It was uncomfortable. Neither of us knew what to say at that point. What were we to each other? I guess that since I had abandoned him I couldn’t claim friend status. I had just left my boyfriend who used to be his best friend so I couldn’t claim girlfriend status. We had slept together, but I had done that on impulse. I wasn’t going to do it again either so I couldn’t claim lover.
Definitely uncomfortable.
“Are you hungry?” he asked. That was good, when all else failed, go with food. The truth was I had so much to think about today, I’d actually forgotten to eat and I was starving.
“Yeah, I am, actually.”
“Let’s go see what we can find in Cookie’s kitchen. It might just be a frozen hamburger patty or two.”
“Whatever is fine,” I told him.
I followed him out and was relieved to see that Cookie and Buster had left. Dax wouldn’t let me follow him in the kitchen, he told me to have a seat and he would do the cooking. I sat there and let everything run through my head again. I wondered if I should have asked my uncle for my job back or if I should go back to school, or both. I could smell Dax cooking and every once in a while I’d catch a glimpse of him as he walked past the little window. I still got a tickle in my belly every time he smiled at me. I wondered if it would ever go away. I wasn’t sure that I wanted it to.
After a while he came out with a plate. It had a jalapeno and cheese burger on it, cut in half and curly fries with garlic and cheese. It was my favorite and he knew it. The tickle in my belly moved up towards my heart.
“Thanks for making all of this for me.”
He leaned on the counter and grabbed a fry off my plate saying, “I didn’t do it all for you, why do you think it’s cut in half?” He grinned at me and I almost told him that if he asked, I’d gladly sit and watch him eat it all. Coming around the counter and sitting down next to me he said, “Just like old times, huh?”
His nearness was making me tingle all over. He was so damn hot. Sometimes I hated what he did to me, mostly because I didn’t know what to do with it. He was right though, this was just like old times. The jalapeno cheese burger and cheesy garlic fries was what I used to order when we would come in together and hang out with his friends and family back in the day. I wish we could close our eyes and tap our heels and go back there. That way, we could move forward cautiously, knowing what to look out for along the way. It sucked that there were no do-overs in life.
“You want a beer?” he asked.
“No, maybe just water,” I told him. “I can get it.”
“Nope, I’m the waiter for tonight. You stay, I’ll get it.”
He went behind the bar again and rummaged in the little refrigerator. He came back with a bottle of water in his hand. He sat it down in front of me and looked at my face.
“So, what happened with Terrance? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “I just packed my things and told him we were through. He tried to talk me out of leaving, but I made sure he understood that I wasn’t going to forgive what he did or the fact that he lied to me about doing it.”
Dax was nodding and then he asked, “You were there all this time?”
“No, I got my things and hung out at my uncle’s shop for a while and then I drove up to the park.”
“You should have called me.”
“I just needed some time to think and clear my head,” I told him.
“So when you showed up last night…what was that about?”
I smiled and shrugged. “A moment of weakness?” I said, like it was a question almost.
“Oh, weakness? That’s what people are calling it these days? What about tonight? Are you still feeling weak?” He was grinning and I knew he was kidding…mostly.
“I think I’ll give the break-up some time before I let myself get all weak in the knees again, thank you very much.”
Still grinning, he said, “Okay, but keep me posted, all right?”
“Shut-up,” she quipped.
“How’s the food?”
“It’s good.” I wasn’t kidding I
t was like comfort food to me and I needed it.
“Good, I’m glad you liked it. Maybe I have a career as a short-order cook. I talked to my mom today about seeing her confront my dad on the security tape.”
I stopped mid-bite. “What did she say?”
“She said that at first, she was afraid that maybe they had talked me into something, but either way, she still blamed my dad. She believes that I didn’t do it though. That means a lot on its own. Remember that whole first few months when I started school, what a hard time he gave me? I held my ground and refused to do what he wanted me to do and that pissed him off. My mom said she thought maybe he had been trying to force me into having no other choices besides the club.”
“Wow, did you tell her about Terrance and the emails?”
“Yeah, she has a soft spot for him. She didn’t come right out and defend him, but she mentioned again about how he only had his dad as an example, blah, blah, blah.”
“I thought about that too,” I told Dax, honestly. “He did get dealt a bad hand in life, but I don’t think it’s a valid excuse. At some point as an adult you have to stop blaming your crappy childhood for everything and take responsibility. Terrance is perfectly satisfied with his life. He has no ambition, no desire to change it.”
“I agree. His life wasn’t any crappier than the rest of us. My mom was always there for him and he grew up right alongside me. Anyways, I’m going to confront my dad next,” he said.
It made my stomach hurt. Bull scared me. I had never seen him be violent, nor did I have any evidence that he was. But, someone that commands the type of loyalty and respect he does from the type of guys he deals with day to day…well that tells me there’s a lot about Bull I didn’t want to know.
CHAPTER FIVE
DAX
Olivia and I talked until way past closing time that night and no one else ever came in. I let her have the room and I thought about going to my parent’s house but I didn’t want to leave her alone in the back of a bar. She said I could sleep in there too, but I had been in prison for two years. My body finally got some sweet release recently and now I could hardly think of anything else. In other words I didn’t trust myself to be good. I slept on the cot in my dad’s office instead and that’s where he found me when he came in the next morning.
“Hey,” he said in his raspy, “I smoke two packs a day,” voice. I was dead asleep and it scared the shit out of me. I literally jumped up off cot. My dad laughed. I apparently looked funny doing it.
“Hey,” I said back when my heart stopped pounding.
“What are you doing in here? What’s wrong with the bed down the hall?” I was twisting and stretching. The damn cot was more uncomfortable than my prison bunk.
“Nothing’s wrong with it. I let Olivia sleep in their last night.”
“Why does Olivia need a place to stay?”
“She broke up with Terrance,”
“Oh well then why ain’t you…?”
“Don’t say it, dad.”
He laughed again. “Alright boy, I’ll leave that one alone. Are you makin’ any progress on them security tapes?”
I cleared my throat, told myself to stop being a chicken shit and said, “Not on the robbery, but I found out a few more interesting things.”
“Like what?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and lighting up a smoke.
“I don’t know how to put any of this shit delicately, dad. I wasn’t trafficking drugs. You know as well as I do that I refused to have anything to do with that shit. I’m pretty sure I was set up. I think I was supposed to get caught and I was supposed to do time. The night of my welcome home party when I came in here, your email was open. I’m sorry that I invaded your privacy and I understand if you’re pissed. But, I saw one that Terrance wrote you, telling you that things were “all set-up and ready to go.” That was the day before I got busted. I’ve already confronted Terrance about it. He admitted getting an email from you giving him the orders. Then, I saw my mother confront you on the security tape. She thought you set me up too. I know those drugs weren’t mine and it all seems like an awfully big coincidence when you add it up.”
My dad was still staring at me, puffing on his cigarette with a thoughtful look on his face. I didn’t know if he was going to be angry about me going through his emails or not.
Finally, he said, “Let me ask you a question, boy. Why in the hell would I want to do that to my own kid? I mean you and I maybe haven’t been all that close over the years, but to send you to prison, on purpose? I ain’t a monster.”
“I’d like for you to tell me straight out that you didn’t do it and if you did, tell me that as well. In my mind, and I think in Mom’s too, the idea of it probably came from how pissed you were at me for going to college and refusing to follow in your footsteps and be a part of this club.”
“Well, let me tell you something. I watched and listened to your mama cry her eyes out every night while you were locked up. Her heart was breaking and there was nothing I could do to fix it. You might look at how I live my life here and think that I don’t care about your mama, but I would do anything for her. She’s my life. Her and my sons. Had I done this, I wouldn’t have only been doing it to you, I’d been doing it to her, and I would never do that, Dax…to either one of you.”
God help me, I wanted to believe him. “What about the emails?”
“I honestly have no fucking clue. I didn’t send Terrance an email with any orders. If he got one, it came from someone else. I also didn’t see any email he sent me about things being set up. You know first-hand since you’ve been in here snooping yourself. I forget to shut it down sometimes. That gives a dozen people access. If that email was opened already and didn’t show up as new, I wouldn’t have paid it no mind.”
Shit, I hated it when I had my mind made up that he was a dick and then he did this to me. There goes the damn conscience that the son of an M.C. Club President shouldn’t have. My dad was waiting for me to say something, but at that point I really didn’t know what to say.
After a long pause he said, “Go back to the security tapes, before you found the email and see who was in here on my computer the few days before. I didn’t send it, son.”
I didn’t commit to believing him. The little boy who worshipped his dad in me wanted to, but the grown-ass man who just got out of prison was saying, “bullshit.”
I just nodded and said, “Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’ll look at the tapes.”
He didn’t ask again if I believed him and I didn’t bring it up.
CHAPTER SIX
OLIVIA
In the middle of the day I was sitting in a homemade bedroom in the back of a biker bar with nothing to do and nothing to look forward to. I had to ask myself how I got to this miserable existence. I made a lot of mistakes, the first of them being not trusting Dax. I was so blinded by what I’d been through with my father and I projected that all over Dax. First lesson I needed to learn was that just because some people, like my dad and Terrance lie as easy as they breathe, it doesn’t mean that everyone does. Dax was still looking for proof that he was set up, but the funny thing was, I didn’t need it any longer.
I believed him.
I had to figure out what to do with my life. I had about three hundred dollars in the bank and I had almost completely stopped working for my uncle to the point he had hired a full-time guy. It was one of the guys I’d met the day before. He seemed like a good guy and I couldn’t ask my uncle to cut his hours to give them back to me.
When I was with Terrance he was paying all the bills and telling me that was how the club worked. The men took care of their women financially and the women supported them in other ways. The other ways were mostly sex, but no one ever came out and said that. Silly me, I saw myself as some kind of house wife. Sometimes I wish I could kick my own ass.
I needed to figure out what the hell I was going to do. I wasn’t going back to Terrance just so he would support me and I wasn’t going to co
ntinue to stay there forever and sponge off Dax. I couldn’t have any kind of self-respect if that was what I resorted to. What I need to do, is go back to school. I could probably get financial aid again and maybe between that and a part-time job I could make it. I wished I had stayed in school. I would have been almost finished. My life got so crazy when Dax went to jail, but most of it was of my own making. It was time to grow up and start making some good decisions.
The first one was school. I decided I was officially going back to school. I needed to go online and reapply for financial aid and start looking for a job. Suddenly I felt better. I hadn’t done anything yet, but I had some kind of direction and I felt a big surge of motivation. I was going to do it right this time and get the hell away from the club forever. I hadn’t met one person since I’d been hanging around that was truly happy. The place and the club just sucked the life out of everything it comes into contact with and I was finished letting it do that to me.
I went out into the hall and saw one of the guys. He was supposedly a nomad and that meant he didn’t have any certain logistical affiliation. But he hung around a lot. His name was Kip. I had no idea if it was a real name or not and no interest in finding out. Just the fact that I knew so much about what a nomad was said I already knew too much about the place. All I wanted was to borrow a computer so I could sign up for classes and start looking for a job.
“Hey, Kip!”
“Hey.”
“Do you think it would be okay if I used one of the computers for a few minutes?”
“Nope,” he said, obviously unconcerned.
“Thanks,” I said.
It was funny. I was headed into an office to use a computer to start my own life to get away from the place where the computer was located.
I turned on the computer and waited for the old machine to boot up. Bull was into spending money on his motorcycles, but not so much on his office supplies. It finally came up and I went to the Universities website. I had thought a lot about what I wanted to do with my life, although I hadn’t really done anything so far. I knew I wanted to get into the medical field. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a nurse or psychiatric tech, but something along those lines. I looked up the requirements of each and the pre-requisite classes. They were both about the same. I still needed to finish my General Ed before I could do anything so I found a sociology class and a psychology class that I qualified for and I signed up for both of them for the fall semester which was going to start in a couple of weeks. They were both on Tuesday and Thursday, so even if I stayed in town, it wouldn’t be so much driving back and forth.
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