by Davida Lynn
“What did it take him to spring Bear? A big favor, I imagine.” Gunner looked over at her. She could see suspicion on his face.
Raven’s heart raced as they got too close to the truth. “Yeah. I owe him. But that’s on me. I’ll square things with him. Can we just leave it at that?”
Gunner didn’t want to leave it at that, but they were in front of the police station. “Fine. For now. This ain’t over, sister.”
She had been pulled away from work to be attacked, and Raven felt ever muscle in her body tense up all at once. “I’m not your sister.” She knew it could undo any civility that was barely forming between them, but Gunner loved to provoke her. He knew how to do it so fucking well, and he had gotten her, again.
Gunner looked her square in the eye. “And you may never be.”
Before she could throw something back in his face, Gunner parked and got out of the truck. She looked toward the police station, waiting for Bear to come outside, but when she didn’t see Gunner walk past her, she spun around. He was halfway across the street, the sound of his black motorcycle boots fading.
She called to him, “Jonesing for a latte?”
Gunner responded by flipping her the bird without turning around.
A few minutes later, Bear pushed through the door. Raven almost did a double-take as she leaned against the fender.
Once he got within earshot, he called to her. “Hey there, darlin’. You’re riding bitch.” Raven knew she shouldn’t take it personal. All Bear meant was that she’d be sitting between them, but it was just one insult too many for the day.
“How about ‘thanks?’ Huh?” She put her hands on her hips, a mom voice coming from somewhere inside of her.
Bear laughed. “How about kiss my ass?” He pulled open the passenger door and slid inside. Raven turned to Gunner, her mouth open in outrage. All he could give her was a shrug and a half-smile.
She pulled herself behind the wheel and when Gunner got in, she found herself pressed against him; much closer than she wanted to be. Raven didn’t look at Bear as they sat right next to each other. She wanted an apology or a thank-you, and it killed her to know she wouldn’t get either.
Looking past Raven, Bear asked the enforcer, “How’d you get the charges dropped?”
The question only made her heart hammer with more fury. He acted as if she couldn’t have possibly been responsible. Hold your goddamn tongue, she told herself.
Gunner looked to Raven. “Don’t ask me, old man. Ask her.” He nudged Raven in the ribs before turning his attention back to the road. A flush came over her. It caught her off-guard. There was a look in Gunner’s eyes that she couldn’t miss. Was there really a friendly smile on his face? After they had just fought? God, she thought, it’s never easy with him.
“Out with it, sugar.” Bear laughed and opened the glove box, grabbing a pack of cigarettes that were sitting next to a pistol. He closed it, paying no attention to the gun. He stared at Raven as he pulled a smoke out and lit it.
“Roll the window down, Bear.” He did as Gunner asked, never taking his eyes off Raven.
She took a deep breath, enjoying the first scent of the cigarette, “I know a cop. Now I owe him one, but it got the job done.”
“What’s his name? Is he Bakersfield PD?”
“Allan- It doesn’t matter. Yeah, he’s with Bakersfield.” Raven felt a twinge of fear sneak up on her. “Bear, don’t do anything. Leave him be. I keep him out of the club life. I don’t tell him anything, and I don’t give him anything.”
“Darlin’, you didn’t tell him nothing about the club because you don’t know nothing about the club. Hearsay and tall tales. I’m sure you know all kinds of great stories, but I doubt there’s much you could say that would get us into any real trouble.”
Raven wanted anything but to be trapped between Bear patronized her and Gunner getting her slightly hot. She wasn’t trying to make herself sound like a club member. She wasn’t trying to sound like a Son. All she was doing was trying to fix a mistake.
“Ah, fuck it,” he muttered. He turned back to the road and didn’t say another word until Gunner dropped him off at his and Faith’s place.
It had felt like a very long ride for her, and the more she ignored Bear, the more she couldn’t ignore Gunner’s body against hers. It was a nice, distracting feeling after all the shit she’d been through. Her relationship with Gunner was complicated to say the least, but a small part of her was dying to tear his clothes off and get simple with him.
Bear got out and slammed the door shut. He leaned back into the window. “Loyalty.” Bear thumped his fist on the door twice, then turned and walked away.
Raven didn’t scoot away from Gunner right away. It took a few minutes for Raven to realize what Bear had meant. She faced Gunner, her eyes open wide. “Wait. Wait a damn minute. Did he mean…?”
He shrugged. “I don’t claim to understand the man. I can make a guess, though. He’s gonna call a meeting tonight. You’ll be there, because Bear’s gonna wanna hear about your relationship with Allan.”
Raven heard a tone in Gunner’s voice. He didn’t like Allan.
“Bear’s thorough. He’s gonna wanna hear the story again. After that, I don’t know. It sounds to me like you impressed the old bastard, but who can say? I’ve seen his opinion of someone turn on a dime, good and bad.”
He drove Raven back to the tattoo parlor, and she didn’t ask any more questions. She wasn’t thinking about the club. Her mind was on the president’s son next to her. She had been thinking about him more and more, knowing she could get herself in big trouble over those thoughts.
“You’ll probably get a text any minute. Be prepared for a meeting tonight.”
Before Raven could get out of the pickup, Gunner pulled her against his body. They kissed, and she felt a shiver run down her spine. His strong hands were at the small of her back, reminding her of everything his body was capable of. They broke the kiss, and she grabbed her work supplies from the bed.
Her mind was blank, but she turned back to him and managed, “What the hell was that for?”
“A job well done.”
Raven turned back to the tattoo parlor, not wanting to give Gunner the satisfaction of a reaction. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. She felt Gunner’s eyes on her as she headed back to the parlor. Just before the door, he called out to her, “And good luck, Raven.”
She smiled, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake the smile the rest of the day.
As he had predicted, the text came. It was the usual. LB 9PM RSMC. Be at the Los Bandoleros at nine, Rising Sons Motorcycle Club meeting.
Raven couldn’t focus on her work. Her thoughts wandered back to the club and Gunner. Had Bear really meant that she passed? What was going to happen between her and Gunner after the kiss? Time slowed to a molasses crawl. One of the clients that she’d rescheduled came in, and Raven fought to keep her excitement under control. Becca, the girl getting a sparrow on her shoulder, noticed that Raven had a little more pep than usual.
“What’s up with you, girl?”
As Raven wiped the tattoo gun down with alcohol pads, she said the first thing she could think of that wasn’t related to the club. “Just some guy.”
“Some guy?” Becca’s voice climbed higher at the mention of a man. “Do tell!”
“It’s someone I know from riding.” Raven did all of Becca’s tattoo work, and they had started grabbing drinks on the weekends. She knew that Raven rode with some bikers, but she didn’t know anything about the club.
“Oh, God, a biker! What does he look like?”
Raven laughed and kept going with the story to cover her real excitement. “Well, he’s a little older than me. He got out of the military not too long ago.”
Becca interrupted Raven’s stream of conscious. “He’s ripped, isn’t he?”
Raven blushed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that. Her eyes went wide.
“
Becca, are you trying to steal him from me?”
“If you aren’t going to enjoy him, I will. Is he inked?”
Raven giggled. It was a feminine sound that didn’t come from her often. “He’s a biker. What do you think?”
“I think he’s probably got tats from head to toe.” Becca looked like she would squirm right out of her seat.
“I know he’s got his club’s logo on his upper arm. Beyond that, I’m not too sure.”
Becca had a wide smile on her face. Her sparrow was the last thing on her mind. “I bet you’ll find out, though. Won’t you?”
“All right. You just keep your mind out of the gutter. If you keep distracting me, you’re going to get a biker pin-up on your shoulder, not a sparrow.”
Becca feigned fear, and she straightened up in the chair, looking forward. “Do your worst.”
Raven got the gun loaded with black ink, then traced the sparrow on Becca’s shoulder. As she worked, she was imagining what would happen that night at the meeting. It was all she could do not to imagine a night with Gunner. She’d decided that there was no option besides her passing the first test. After all, Bear was free and the charges had been dropped.
Every time that warm thought came into her head, Raven realized that she still owed Allan. Gunner’s kiss only complicated things. Maybe he was jealous, and that was his way of trying to marking his territory.
There was only one person who knew the reason behind the meeting. Gunner and Raven had their guess, but Raven especially didn't want to count any chickens. It was one of her rare nights off at the club, so she showed up just ten minutes before the executive meeting was supposed to start.
Aside from the seven or eight motorcycles in the parking lot, the place was deserted. A good night could see more than forty there at a time. Raven guessed some non-Sons had already been turned away for the night. Most of the regulars understood that it was a club-controlled bar. They did what they were told and they respected the law of the land. Everyone except Earl McFadden, of course. Raven rolled her eyes and shook her head thinking of that man, the catalyst for the off-schedule meeting.
It was almost nine o'clock on a Saturday night when Raven pushed through the door into the club. The place looked like it had just been shut down. Aside from two tables, the chairs world turned upside down. All the neon signs advertising beers were shut off, and no guitar-heavy classic rock poured from the speakers or the stage.
"Ah, the girl of the hour." Bear pushed his chair back and stood up, a stupid, wide grin on his face.
Raven smiled back out of politeness, but was off-put by Bear. She'd never seen him that happy, and that made her uneasy. She could handle angry. She could handle assholes. She could handle any foulmouthed biker that walked into the bar. What she couldn't handle was a president that had given her nothing but backhanded compliments all of a sudden throwing arm over her shoulder.
She looked to the two tables. Most of the bikers that had arrived were the senior members. Gunner was there, along with a few of the old-timers that had ridden with Bear at the club's inception. In terms of muscle, the core group in front of her may have been passed their prime, but they were the real strength behind the Rising Sons Motorcycle Club.
Gunner gave a look that almost made Raven laugh. Embarrassment. She never thought she'd see that come from the hardened biker, but Bear had managed to get it from Gunner somehow. "All right, all right. Bear, let the chick sit down.”
The president laughed. "All right. Have a seat, darlin'."
Raven grabbed a chair that was resting on the table behind her. She spun it up right and set it down in the only free space at the two tables. It was just like the pickup ride, stuck between bikers again, and her heart was racing, because it was Gunner she drew closer to this time.
She tried not to look over at him, her talk with Becca fanning the flames. Before that, Raven hadn’t even seen it as a spark, but after the kiss something had ignited. Not right now, she told herself. Raven had bigger things to worry about as she sat surrounded by the most important members of the Rising Sons.
She exchanged nods and silent greetings with the members at the two tables. Before anybody else could speak, Bear stood behind his chair. "I'm standing in front of you tonight because of Raven. We all know Earl McFadden is trying to destroy this club, and he took a big step forward getting me thrown in jail. Raven, on the other hand, took an even bigger step forward… for the club."
Raven’s heart sang. Gunner had been right. The meeting was about her test of loyalty, and everything made it sound like she had passed. She clenched her jaw tight and tried to keep her cheeks from going red. He wasn't the only one fighting embarrassment. Raven’s pride swelled as she tried to keep herself together.
"Whatever she did, all the charges are dropped, and they let me walk. Clyde? You and me's been outta prison for more than twenty years. Well, I got a taste of it again yesterday, and it ain't any easier. I saw the same look in everybody's eyes. The guard, the judge, you name it. They are out for blood. They’re out for us."
"What are you trying to say, Bear?” Clyde asked. He was a chain smoker, and Raven could almost hear every single cigarette in his voice.
Bear hung his head. When he lifted it again, the years seemed to show up on his face. Every wrinkle was a hard ride, every scar a step up from what he had been. "They got eyes on us. They might have ears on the inside. I don't know. The world just feels a lot tighter than it did two days ago, Clyde."
Everyone took in Bear’s words. It derailed the emotions that Raven had been feeling, but it also validated the thoughts she’d had about the outlaw biker group. The age of leather and Harleys seemed to be giving way to technology. The Rising Sons were something out of a different time; something the law couldn't look past anymore.
Bear shook his head and stood straight again. "But that's not why we’re here. Y'all are here because of this girl." He laid a hand hard on her shoulder. “Every man—or in this first-time case, woman—must prove their loyalty in whatever way they see fit. This ain't some multiple-choice test that you can just wing, and Raven proved exactly where her loyalties lie. Congratulations, Raven. Today, you are one step closer to becoming a Rising Son."
The bikers surrounding Raven applauded. She knew some of them wanted nothing to do with her, but many of them did welcome her into the club. They cheered her on, and she couldn't hold back her blushing anymore. Her smile was uncontrollable. She had passed the test, even though she knew that doing so had put her in debt with Allan. She would worry about that later.
Gunner put a hand on her back, sending electricity through her body. It was such a familiar touch, even though she never would have expected it from him. She thanked her lucky stars that she was already blushing. She didn't understand what he was doing at first, but then it dawned on her that he was pressuring her to stand up.
"Speech, speech," he chanted.
Raven playfully slapped his hand away, but stood. She didn't know what to say. Being that much closer to becoming a Rising Son meant the world to her, but she was at a complete loss for words. She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a giggle—something that made her embarrassed to ride a motorcycle. When the other bikers’ cheers turned into jeers, Raven flipped them off and found her words.
"Screw you all." They laughed, and after a second, she added, "And thank you. This means a lot to me. I know I've only passed one of the three tests, but I will prove myself."
They cheered again, raising their beers and tipping them to her.
The official meeting that Raven had been called to didn’t last more than fifteen minutes, but the heads of the club enjoyed the uncrowded bar with her for the remaining forty-five. They told war stories and drank beer. Raven learned more about Gunner’s time in the Marines, and she heard from the very source about how Bear came from Colorado to California.
