by Nicole Fox
I turn to him. “A basket of kittens—”
He kisses me, hard, holding my face in his hands. “Give me a chance, all right?” he says. “But where will we go? You’ve got the kid with you.”
“That’s a good question.” I search my mind, and then my smile grows wider and wider.
“I don’t like the look of that,” he says, but he’s smiling too. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I have the perfect place.”
Chapter Eight
Fury
The place is called the Fun Factory, a daycare-slash-restaurant on the outskirts of town, near the highway. It’s a large warehouse converted into a place of laughs and children, with a giant clown’s face above the door that looks more scary than welcoming.
We sit on the table closest to the play area, where the staff play with the younger children, helping them to throw balls and giggle and all the kids’ stuff kids do.
“If you’d told me yesterday that I’d be here,” I say, “I would’ve laughed in your face. I’ve driven past this place but that’s about it.”
She smiles at me. Damn, there’s somethin’ in that smile. Something dangerous and captivating. “It’s a nice place.”
“A good idea,” I agree.
“Hello, welcome to the Fun Factory …” The waiter takes our orders, brings our shakes, and tells us that our food will be out shortly.
“So.” She folds her hands. “How do you behave on a date, then?”
“Believe it or not, this is the first date I’ve ever been on.”
“Yeah, right.” She pouts at me. “You don’t have to lie.”
“I don’t date,” I tell her. “Honestly.”
“But you’re not a virgin. We both know that.” She glances into the play area, where Jimmy sits with his legs open, soft toys in his hands.
“No,” I agree, and leave it at that.
But she presses on. “So you’re dating is normally more similar to what we did in the hotel, then?”
I sip my milkshake. “Let’s not talk on that,” I say. “It won’t do any good.”
She nods shortly. “You’re probably right. So let me show you how a proper date goes.” She rests her chin on her interlocked fingers. “So, Jack, why don’t you tell me something about yourself?”
“Like what?” I chuckle.
“Oh, I don’t know. Where did you grow up?”
“Next county over,” I mutter. “Not much to tell about that, though.”
“Okay …” She sees through the lie, I’m sure of it, but she chooses not to press it any further. “What do you do for work?”
“Do you really wanna know that, Gloria?”
“Well, I should probably know where the money you gave me came from.”
So I tell her, about Jackson, about the club, about the life. I leave out the grisly details but I don’t hide the fact that I’m an outlaw.
“An outlaw,” she echoes. “Is that what you call it?”
“Good as anything else, I reckon. What about you?”
“Are you trying to change the subject?” Her eyes dance, playful. I never put much stock in a lady’s eyes, since I don’t plan on lookin’ at them for long, but her eyes are something else entirely. “You can’t tell me you’re a criminal and then leave it at that.”
“Not a criminal. An outlaw.”
“Doesn’t that mean you live outside the law?”
I nod. “Well, yeah.”
“I’m sorry to break it to you, Jack, but that’s the exact definition of a criminal.”
I shrug. “Then I’m a criminal. I ain’t gonna be ashamed. Do you wanna leave now?”
“No. You’re my child’s father. I don’t want to leave you, not when we’re just getting started.”
“What about you, though?” I urge.
“I’m a freelance editor,” she says.
“I remember you mentioning that,” I say. “Back at the hotel. So it worked out, then?”
“Sort of. If it had worked out completely, I wouldn’t need to ask you for cash. But it’s going okay. I’m getting there.”
“What do you edit?”
She raises her eyebrows. “Do you care?”
“Yes,” I say, surprised that I mean it. I really do care.
“Fiction. Nonfiction. Whatever work I can get, really. I’d love to get to the point where I can pick and choose my jobs, but right now I’m just a word-grunt, editing whatever passes my desk. But I can’t complain too much; I’m doing what I set out to do.”
“Yeah. That’s somethin’.”
“What about you? I’m sure you didn’t set out to be an outlaw.”
“No. But I reckon you’d laugh if I told you what I wanted to be when I was a kid.”
She reaches across the table and touches my hand. “I won’t laugh at you,” she promises.
I swallow. “I’ve never told anybody this before, not even Jackson.”
“Lucky me, then.” She gives my hand a squeeze.
“I wanted to be a beekeeper,” I say.
She breaks into laughter, falling back into her chair.
“You said you wouldn’t laugh!” I exclaim, but I’m laughing too.
“I’m sorry.” She wipes a tear from her eyes. “It’s just, of all the things you could’ve said, I wasn’t expecting beekeeper.” She smooths her hand over her face, transforming her smile into a flat line. “Okay. I am calm. Call me the Queen of Calm. Why a beekeeper?”
“I saw a movie on it once when I was really young and it looked peaceful, like if all a man—well, a boy—if all he had to worry about was makin’ sure his bees were okay, he’d be okay. He wouldn’t have to worry about anything else, all the bullshit life throws at you.”
She raises her milkshake. “Here’s to bees, then, and the ladies and gentleman who keep them.”
I knock my plastic cup against hers. “A beekeeper,” she says, shaking her head. “You really are full of surprises. You know it’s not too late, don’t you? I’m sure there are classes you could take, or clubs, or something.”
I snort. “I reckon it’s too late for boyish dreams, Gloria. Maybe your little guy can follow whatever dream he has, but I ain’t gonna humiliate myself like that. No, I know what I am. And it ain’t a beekeeper.”
“Our little guy, you mean. And you’re a good man. That’s what you are.”
I’m about to contradict her but then the waiter brings our burgers and fries. We eat slowly, talking between mouthfuls.
“What do you do for fun now, then? If you don’t keep bees.”
“I drink. I go fishing sometimes with my friend Butcher. I ride. I … shit, yeah, maybe that’s about it. I like to keep my mind as empty as I can, ’cause an empty mind don’t hold no demons in it.”
She stares at me for a moment, and then nods briskly. “Yes,” she says. “I understand you completely.”
It’s a strange thing, ’cause I really do believe that she understands me completely. She’s not just saying it to say it. There’s something in her that’s not so dissimilar to the thing that’s inside me. It seems that way, at least, not that I’ve ever been the most skilled at reading people. She smiles, and nods again; we hold each other’s gaze. I’m almost certain of it. Some trauma, maybe? Might be her parents weren’t so good to her either.
I lean across the table and kiss her on the side of the mouth.
“What was that for?” she asks.
“You had some milkshake on your face.”
“Oh.” She touches the spot I kissed. “Thanks.”
A goddamn shiver moves up my back! I take a chunk out of my burger so I don’t have to think about it. I ought to be reminding myself of the risks of family, not losing myself to them.
“You know what,” she says after a long, burger-munching pause, “I think we should get you one of those beekeeping suits. We can take you out to a—what are they called—a beekeeping sanctuary.”
“An apiary,” I interject.
/> “Wow. That’s impressive.”
“I didn’t even know I remembered that until just now.”
“Look how embarrassed you are!” she squeals in glee. She points at my face with a fry. “You’re turning red. No, not turning red. You’re already red! Bright red! I thought you were this big, tough biker, but it turns out you’re just a little boy.”
“There might be some truth to that,” I say, not laughing. “But I ain’t being a beekeeper. I reckon it’d bore me now. I reckon I’d get out there and my mind’d go a hundred different ways and I wouldn’t be able to focus.”
“But that’s the point, isn’t it, to stop your mind from going a hundred different ways? I don’t want to pry, seeing as this is our first date, but I’m sorry for whatever happened to you.”
I swallow. My throat is suddenly dry despite the shake. “Don’t worry about it,” I manage to stutter.
“I know childhoods can be hard,” she goes on softly. “That’s why I wanted Jimmy to meet you, so he’d have a father. A father who loves him, hopefully.”
“Loves him,” I repeat. “Love …” The word stretches between us. “Love is a tricky thing, ain’t it? I’m not sure I’d recognize it if I felt it.”
“I’m sure you would,” she says. “I felt the same, once. It was before I had Jimmy. I liked people, maybe really liked them. My best friend Alexis, I really liked her. But I’d never say I loved her. I—something happened, something I won’t go into, when I was younger. And it broke me, I guess, the same way I’m guessing something broke you; please tell me if I’m out of line. But then I had Jimmy and I knew I could love again. I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s the truth.”
“Yeah,” I say, not sure what else I can say. “That sounds good.”
“You’re my caveman!” she declares, her cheeks flushed, pink. She looks vibrant. There’s something incredibly attractive about her right now, beyond just how hot she is. It’s like an energy. “Just a big brute. A big monosyllabic brute.”
“So one second I’m a beekeeper and the next I’m a brute. You ought to make your mind up, sweetheart.”
“Can’t you be both? Don’t be so discriminatory against cavemen. I’m sure they’d make fine beekeepers.”
“All right, then. Whatever you say.” I do the crazy sign, twirling my finger near my head.
She reaches across the table and thumps me on the arm. “That was just a warning shot,” she says. “The next one will break you.”
“Bring it on, small-fry.” I take my straw from my shake, aim it at her, and blow. Milkshake flies across the table and splats against her neck.
“You animal!” she cries, aiming hers at me. She blows but it falls short, landing on my burger.
“Wow.” I take a bite out of it. “Milkshake burger. Tasty.”
She giggles, and there’s no art in it at all. Not like the way the club girls giggle; they’re trying to get something out of me, I always sense that. Money, approval, attention. It’s always twisted to a purpose. But Gloria just giggles, the veins on her neck bulging, clawing at her throat, staring at the sky. She completely lets herself go in a way that would embarrass most other women.
Then she settles down, sneering at me. “I’ll get you,” she promises. “One of these days—” She glances over to the play area as she talks, and then her face turns sour. “Where’s Jimmy?” she mutters. Her voice rises. “Where’s Jimmy?”
She’s on her feet. I rush behind her to the playpen. Jimmy is nowhere to be seen, not near the older kids’ section or in the play area where he’s supposed to be. We search the place from top to bottom, the date forgotten, our childlike giggling forgotten. I rush to the manager—a fat man with an earpiece and a clipboard—and grab him by the shoulders.
“Where’s your CCTV room?” I growl at him.
“Um, sir …”
Gloria steps up beside me, clutching onto his shoulder and staring at him with a gaze I wouldn’t want leveled at me. “Tell us. Now!” she demands.
He looks from her to me and back again, and then swallows. “At the top of the stairs. Through that door.” He points.
I charge up the stairs, breath loud in my ears, heart just as loud. I kick through the door and switch on the display, rewind the recording to the start of our meal and watch it on double-speed.
“There,” she says, voice grave. “Play from there.”
It happened as I was kissing the milkshake from her lips. A member of staff—a paid shill, no question—carried Jimmy to the fire escape at the back, where he handed him to a man in a Lady’s Death MC jacket.
Chapter Nine
Gloria
“If we call the police, they’ll kill him.”
Those words crack my skull repeatedly as I sit just outside Jack’s boss’ office in their clubhouse, my back pressed right up against the wall. He gave me two shots of whisky to calm my nerves but my nerves are not calmed. How could they be, with that rattling around my head? I took out my phone, dialed 911, and then Jack snatched the phone from me and explained to me that if his rival MC sees police, they turn deadly. I believe him; there was no hint of deceit in his face. So I put my phone in my pocket and followed him here.
I swallow sick, my belly twisting, sending it churning up into my mouth.
He kissed milkshake off my face, a kiss, and for that kiss, Jimmy is gone: too cheap, a wicked price.
I interlock my fingers, squeezing them together so hard that my knuckles turn bone-white. And I listen to the conversation in the next room between Jack and his boss. Jackson, I remind myself. Jack and Jackson.
“It’s my kid, sir,” Jack says. “I know that’s a big fuckin’ shock to you but it’s a big shock to me as well. But it’s my kid and some Lady’s Death fuck stole him, stole him from right under my nose. I ain’t gonna ask you to do this for love or nothin’ like that, but this is about respect, sir, respect. We can’t just let them get away with this.”
“A child,” Jackson says, and the way he says it makes me want to tear my hair out. Like a child is less than useless, like even talking about saving a child is a waste of time. “I understand that you are upset, Jack, but you can’t expect me to start a war for a child.”
“But we’re already at war!” Jack snaps. I’m glad, at least, that he’s not letting himself be cowed. “All I’m asking is for you to give me the full force of the club to go after these bastards and get the kid back. Listen, she wanted to call the cops. We both know what that would mean.”
“Death for the boy, number one; ruin for the club, number two.”
“So you’ve gotta give me somethin’. If she can’t go to the cops and if we ain’t gonna help her, she’s got nothing.”
“My men have duties.” His voice is infuriatingly calm. I take a deep breath, trying to keep myself calm. But then I see the CCTV image in my mind, that leather jacket, Jimmy peering over the man’s shoulder. He was crying. “I can’t simply remove them from their duties and set them on some rescue mission, Jack. That isn’t how the club works.”
I stand up, roll my shoulders, pace up and down. I grit my teeth so hard, they cut into my gums. I want to barge into the office and give this boss a piece of my mind, but that was precisely what Jack asked me not to do. He didn’t even want me in here; he tried to get me to wait outside. The clubhouse is empty. My footsteps echo loudly on the hardwood floor.
“I get that,” Jack says, struggling to keep his voice flat. I hear the struggling, like a guitar note struck wrong. “But you’ve gotta give me some leeway here, sir. That’s my kid. That’s not just disrespect to me; that’s disrespect to the club. What happens when folks hear that a Lady’s Death can just steal our kids and get away with it? Do you reckon that’ll make us more respected, more feared?”
“You are angry and you have every right to be angry,” Jackson goes on in that horribly, pathetically, gratingly calm voice. “But the club is bigger than one man. You know that, Jack. You’ve always been good at remembering that. If I do what yo
u ask, we lose one hundred thousand almost immediately. After that, who knows? How long do you think the men’ll follow us if they don’t get paid? A club is about loyalty, it’s true, but loyalty has a limit and that limit has a dollar value. That’s what I have to think about: what’s best for the club in the long-term.”
“Sir.” I can almost see him, standing tall, fists clenched. “With all due respect, we’re talking about a two-year-old here. Not even two yet. We can’t just let them keep him.”
