by Flora Burgos
“Well, I mean, yeah, of course I do. But I didn’t even brush my hair today, and this is my laundry-day outfit. And earlier I was wearing my PJs, so what if this is all I own? Have you thought about that?”
“I don’t give a shit. You’ll be working the front counter at a garage; it ain’t like you’ll be entertaining the pope or having to get under a hood. Wear what you want as long as you get the job done and you’re decent. Besides, you got some kick-ass legs.”
“Can I take the job and just keep my, uh, other accommodations?”
“You can, but pay’s shit, Sweetness. Doubt it will keep you in kibble, fix your car, and pay for a room for more than a couple days.”
I had no clue why I was arguing with this man. It was a knee jerk reaction, and I couldn’t seem to stop needling him. “So, what you’re saying is that you will give me a job, expect good work, and only pay subpar wages?”
“I haven’t even told you what you would be making, and you’re already giving me shit. I would think you would at least get your first check before you started bitching about a raise.”
His words were harsh, but his tone was partly exasperated, mostly amused. I couldn’t help but smile at the way he said it. He was right. I stumbled into town, and he saved me on the side of the road, made sure I made it to safety, and then offered to fix my car, give me a job, and offered me a place to stay all within hours of meeting me, so really, I could be a little more grateful about everything. I made a kissy noise at my boy and issued a verbal command saying, “Come on, Zeusyboy. Mommy has some paperwork to fill out.”
When I looked back at Jinx, I saw his lips curved up in a smile, and after staring at my ass for a second, he gave a headshake and fell in line to go to the office to get me the paperwork. He still carried my keys, one of the rings around his pointer finger and the big hot-pink fuzzy ball keychain swinging around in circles as he walked.
Chapter Three
Roxanne
I didn’t actually start working the day I filled out the application and handed it over to an amused Jinx. I had Zeus lie down behind the counter, then followed Jinx out to the car and watched as he popped the hood and fiddled with some things. Then he had one of the other guys—a man wearing grease-stained coveralls, a bandana wrapped around his head keeping his long shaggy, gray hair out of his eyes, and a weary and weathered look to him—pull my car into the bay before they lifted it on some sort of elevator thing and poked and prodded at Sally with random tools. I tried to watch in interest, but I was bored to the gills because this was not my thing. Finally, they lowered my car, and the old guy, whom Jinx called Pops—and really I hoped he wasn’t his Dad because, who names their kid Jinx anyways—backed my car out of the bay and parked it in a spot outside the garage before he came back in, tossing my keys to Jinx and disappearing behind another car.
Jinx wiped his hands on the mostly black but used-to-be-red rag and pushed it back into his back pocket as he made his way toward me. “Definitely your fuel pump, and you could really use a tune-up and new tires.”
Ugh. Of course, there would be more than one thing wrong with my car. I knew I was lucky to have made it as far as I had without having any kind of work done to it after all the traveling we had done over the last year and a half. “Ok, so how much is all of this going to cost me?”
“You workin’ here means you get it at cost. You decide to stay with me, where I know you are safe, then you can have it without labor. We can square up by you working here when we’re open and helping me with what you can.”
“Wait, so you are paying me to work here and still cutting me a deal on the parts and labor?”
“However you want to look at it, just as long as you see things my way.”
“What if I were an axe murderer? I mean, I did promise you my first kid. Doesn’t that strike you as a little loony tunes?”
“Sweetness, will you just take a little kindness when it’s thrown your way? I don’t want anything out of you but what I said, so what’s the holdup?”
I could tell he was serious this time, so I took a moment to consider what he was saying. I just couldn’t understand what would make someone so willing to take another person in and trust them with a family member and all of their belongings while giving them a leg up. I mean, by all rights, he could have driven past me on the side of the road and not looked back, and I wouldn’t have expected any differently. But instead, he was giving me a job, helping me with my car, and offering me a place to stay with a dog I could tell he wasn’t altogether sure about. I wasn’t used to this kind of thoughtfulness from anyone and wasn’t sure how to take it. I think he could tell my reticence, because he spoke again, saying gruffly, “Baby, seriously, you get on your feet or decide it’s time to move on, you’re free to go. I won’t ask anything of you except that you give us a heads-up, so we can get someone else in to man the office, because serious as fuck, I hate being cooped up in there, and so do all of the boys.”
I spent my whole life not making connections and not owing anyone anything, but this tanned man with long black hair pulled back in a bun that should have looked ridiculous but for some reason only accentuated his features, lots of facial hair, and tattoos covering what seemed like every inch of his body made me want to take a chance and reach out to another human being for once in my life. I tested him; I couldn’t seem to help it. “I’m good for a few days, so can we revisit the subject of where I sleep later?”
He smiled in a way that softened his rough edges and took years off his face when he said, “Ok. You take the day to sort your shit and be here tomorrow morning at seven thirty. I’ll have Pops or one of the boys give you a rundown of the office and how everything works, and I’ll let you sit on making a decision on staying at mine for a few days.”
“Ok,” I accepted begrudgingly.
“Wednesday, I’ll be on my bike and will come pick you up, so we can hit the compound for a few drinks and you can get to know the other brothers who will likely be coming through here.”
“Uh, compound? What does that even mean?”
“Yeah compound, the place where my brothers and I meet up to discuss business or have get-togethers.”
“So, like a family reunion?”
His lip quirked up on one side, and he shook his head but didn’t respond. I took that as an affirmative and let it go. I decided to call it a day and stepped past him to go inside and call my boy to the car. When he was loaded up and I was about to duck into the driver’s seat, I heard a sharp whistle ring out and looked up to see Jinx give a lazy salute and turn on his heel to walk back into the car bay.
I climbed in and breathed a sigh of relief when Sally started up with no problems. We swung in to get a pizza from the take-out place and drove to the end of the island where there was an open stretch of beach, even though it was still early in the afternoon and I had a whole city at my hands to discover. All I had the energy to do was wash one of my nicer outfits in the sink of the bathroom of a gas station with bars on the windows, then take them out to the car. After driving to the beach, I laid them across the hood to hopefully air dry before morning and called it an early night.
I took my guy for a walk before bed and didn’t get a single side-glance from anyone we passed. I wondered briefly if Jinx expected me to leave my dog in the room I supposedly had all day tomorrow, but I decided that if he did, he would have said so, so I rolled my windows down just a little to let the breeze coming off the water blow into my car. I locked the doors before grabbing a blanket that was in the passenger seat and brought it up to rest my head on as a makeshift pillow. I was still wearing my ratty laundry-day outfit as I was lulled to sleep by the snores coming from my backseat. I decided as I drifted off that all in all, it had been a good day, and I would be damned if I questioned it further. Tomorrow would bring whatever it brought, but today had been one of my better days, and I was feeling cautiously optimistic for my immediate future.
Chapter Four
Jinx
> Pops was leaning against the wall when I turned back toward the garage bay that the Mustang had just filled. I knew the old bastard was going to voice his opinion on something; he felt like that was his right as the founding member of the Mischief Makers MC and my deceased dad’s best friend.
Pops, Wide Load, Polar Bear, and my dad, Big ‘Un, founded this MC straight out of ‘Nam. A giant fuck-you to the establishment in general, they liked to say; but while a lot of clubs claimed they were about family, we truly were.
Scratch, my best friend, the club’s sergeant at arms and the offspring of Wide Load and his old lady, Birdie, my brother, Nomad, and I had all grown up on the compound, in the life; Rammer and Jammer, who belonged to Polar Bear and his old lady, were doing the required stint as prospects before they could claim their patches and officially join the brotherhood, but there were no doubts that it would happen.
We were legacy and we had served our country.
A few of the brothers had come in during my old man’s stint as prez, Q Ball, my VP, and Freight Train, my Road Captain being two of them. Turn-Pike, Mouse, and more recently, Tadpole had come in under my gavel, and Gunny was a newer member of our chapter but had been a part of the Bayview Chapter after coming home from the first wave of troops to hit the desert in the Middle East after 9/11.
We’d all done our time.
We were a Motorcycle Club of Veterans doing our best to keep the island we lived on clean while being relatively law-abiding citizens. The last thing I had time for was a distraction that had legs that looked the way Roxanne’s did, nine kinds of problems I was itching to solve and a history that I wanted to know everything about.
I shook out a smoke and lit it, then lifted an eyebrow, waiting. The old man wheezed away from the wall and spit to the left before gesturing his head in the direction where I had left her. “Bitch is trouble.”
I didn’t fully understand his tone, but his words pissed me off, which shifted me out of my lazy stance. Shoulders straightened and face set, I dared, “Come again?”
He watched me for a few moments, and I tried to discern the look on his face as he searched mine but decided the bastard was going ‘round the bend when he threw back his head and laughed his raspy smoker’s laugh, tar-stained teeth showing and scraggly and ridiculously long, mostly gray beard shaking. He laughed until he had to wipe tears from the creases of his eyes. I just watched.
Hell, maybe this was what an old, rusted-out biker looked like when he’d finally cracked. I was debating punching the fucker just to shut him up, but he finally got himself under control and said, “About got’am time, boy.”
So, maybe he had lost it. I asked, “What the fuck you ramblin’ about, Pops?” instead of hitting him, just to be on the safe side.
“Heard you trying to get her to shack up with you and wanted to see which way the wind was blowing. Didn’t know if you were itchin’ for a house mouse or an ol’ lady.”
This was the fine line that I walked. Me being his president, he wouldn’t be pushing this shit, but since I was his adopted nephew, he felt it was his place to poke at every damn thing.
“The wind is blowing like a woman with no family and nowhere to go rolled onto the island that we claimed as ours, and I’m trying to make sure the fuckin’ Bangers don’t get ahold of her. What the hell do you think they would do with a girl like her?”
“Well, fuck me, brother. I didn’t know we were running a halfway house for any homeless single bitches that hit our territory. My apologies.”
That one pissed me off. “We got a problem? Last I checked, it wasn’t anyone else’s business if I offer a bitch a room or not.”
“So, she is a bitch, then?”
He was fucking with me.
That was when I realized it. I shook my head and walked away muttering, “Stupid fucking old man.”
He laughed again as I hit the door to the office, but I blew him off.
Chapter Five
Roxanne
To say that working at the shop every day was an easy transition would be sugarcoating it a bit, but on my first day, with Zeus in tow, I was introduced to everyone who worked in the shop. To my surprise, most of these guys were rough around the edges and tattooed to the max, but as a whole they were all fairly polite.
I arrived at Double M at 7:45 and found the lot deserted, so I sat in my seat mentally pep talking myself into believing that this could somehow be a good idea. I was so deep in thought that when the roar of motorcycle pipes finally cracked my thoughts, I jumped and let out a little yelp in alarm. Then I watched in fascination as five very impressive-looking motorcycles and what appeared to be a fancy motorized reverse tricycle filed behind the building. What struck me the most was that every single man on a bike was wearing matching leather vests with some kind of designs on the back. They matched like it was Twinkie-Tuesday at the biker auto repair shop.
After introductions were made all around—and really, these guys were determined to call me anything but my actual name, because with the little bit of background Jinx had given them on me, I had been dubbed Gypsy by the boys; although frustratingly, Jinx stuck with calling me Sweetness—Jinx had Pops walk me through the front office procedures. Essentially, there was nothing to do but secretarial and bookkeeping work, so I was ok with that. Zeus and I settled in for a long day behind the counter.
Surprisingly, after a few hours, Jinx came in, let out a whistle, and patted his leg, drawing my dog’s attention. Then he walked right back through the doors to the garage bays with Zeus trailing him.
Stupefied, I stood there for a moment in shock before deciding to follow them out to see what the hell.
“Jinx? What the heck?”
He looked at me and winked before walking through a door at the back of the shop. Well, there was no way he was getting away with that for one second, so I marched my tail right out the door behind him and was shocked all over again as I watched him open the door to a huge pickup truck and motion for my dog to get in.
What. The. Hell.
“Just what in the heck do you think you’re doing?”
“Figured I got the monster in my truck, you would follow, and we could get out of here and grab a bite to eat. I didn’t intend for you to hide behind the counter the whole day. You can wander around. Someone comes in, they ring the bell or one of the brothers hollers for you.”
I found myself climbing into the truck even as I said, “I’m really not hungry, and besides, I’ve never really had a job like this, so it’s kind of fun to just sit back there and chat with people as they come in.”
“Sweetness, most of the people you’ve dealt with so far today have been on the phone, and of the five people you have seen face-to-face, you’ve spent the majority of the time talking to Pops, and he’s supposed to be working, not flirting with the staff.”
I gave a snort and replied, “Am I correct in saying that you said this morning, and I quote, ‘Old man, show her the ropes. I fuckin’ hate paperwork’ before disappearing for the next few hours?”
He reached out and playfully tugged a tendril of my hair that had slipped from my tie and responded, “You went to college, so you obviously know how to work a computer. Walking you through the basics should have taken a half hour tops, yet when I walked in there an hour ago, I heard the two of you discussing commands in German and debating which of your breeds were the better dogs, his Chihuahuas or your Pit.”
While I cringed and mentally thought buuuuuuusted, verbally, all I said was, “Well, obviously, Pits are the better breed. We all know that Chihuahuas are evil little fuckers!”
He snorted back a laugh and put his right hand on the wheel, using his left to tap along to some unheard beat while shaking his head.
I found myself smiling for no real reason as the wind blew through the open windows and I sat beside a man I had met only days before and already felt connected to. My boy had his tongue hanging out in a big Pitbull grin, just enjoying the ride. It struck me that I had never jus
t been content to be. I wasn’t running from anything, and I had no fears. There were no worries clouding my mind, and I was riding in a tow truck with my boy and a gorgeous man who seemed intent on changing my wandering ways.
“Where are we going?”
“Mama’s,” he grunted at me.
I froze in terror.
Oh no. Oh hell no.
“Wait, as in your mother’s house?” I squeaked.
He made a choking sound and shook his head but didn’t have time to respond before he was pulling into the parking lot of a café with the word ‘Mama’s’ emblazoned on the sign by the road.
Oh.
Whew.
“There’s a restaurant called Mama’s? That is so weird, you know that, right? And what about my guy?”
“He can come, too. We’ll sit outside. One of the girls will come out and take our orders.”
Jinx shut off the engine, climbed out of the truck, and made his way around to my side as I opened the door and jumped to the ground. I patted my leg, and Zeus bounded out of the cab. I saw as we walked around the side of the restaurant that there was a covered patio with picnic tables and torches, setting the scene for a rustic outing.
I sat across from Jinx, and Zeus lay down on the ground at the end of the table. As he sat, he adjusted his vest and rested an elbow on the table. The at-ease posture he held himself in relaxed me enough that I could ask him, “Why do you guys all have matching vests?”
He looked at me for a moment in silent shock and then spoke. “Sweetness, you remember me telling you about the club? We, the brothers at the shop, a few others, and I, are part of a motorcycle club called the Mischief Makers. We all have our cuts, the vests, and wear them all the time, because we are proud of our brotherhood and have busted ass to earn the patches we have on them.”
