BAKER

by Scott Hildreth

  “We’re…” Considering what she’d told me about her ex, telling her any version of the truth wasn’t going to be easy. I couldn’t tell her everything. But, if we were going to have any kind of a future together, I had to tell her something. “We’re. We don’t always follow the rules and regulations that the rest of society does.”

  “Bikers never do, do they?”

  I chuckled. “Probably not.”

  She nodded slowly.

  There was a high probability that she had no idea what I was taking about. As much as I wanted to end the conversation, I knew I had to elaborate.

  I looked her in the eyes. “We break the law.”

  Her eyes thinned. “On purpose?”

  “Sometimes.” I let her chew on my response for a few seconds, and then clarified. “Actually, quite often. Before you ask, I’m bound by an oath not to discuss what we do. But, I can tell you this: I’m a good person, and other than what I’ve got to do to honor that oath, I’ll never lie to you, and I’ll never hurt you. Ever.”

  She looked away. After a moment, she met my gaze. “I know you’re a good person. You prove it to me all the time.”

  Her gaze fell to the floor. For a moment, she stared blankly, and then looked up. “So, this is a lifetime commitment? This club?”

  “It is.”

  She shifted her eyes to the bed. “I want to think about all of this. It’s a lot to take in.”

  I stood. “Take you time.”

  I finished getting ready while she brushed her teeth and changed into the prior night’s clothes. After a silent cup of coffee and a slice of dry of toast, she asked if I’d walk her out.

  I had two options. Taking her down the stairs, which would bypass the clubhouse, or taking her down the elevator, which would lead her right through it, in front of any of the early risers. It was Cash and Ghost that normally showed up early, and my guess was that they were downstairs.

  So, I chose the latter.

  If we were going to take even one step in the direction of a relationship, there were a lot of things I was going to have to take ownership of.

  One of those things was her.

  I pushed the front door open and gestured toward the corridor. “After you.”

  We walked side by side to the elevator. Together, we took a tense ride down one story. Our reasons for the tension we felt were different, but I rode knowing they were both the product of my life’s choices.

  When the doors opened, I stepped out first. As we passed by the entrance to the clubhouse, Cash met my gaze. His jaw clenched tight. Ghost gave a silent nod, and Reno did the same. All three of them knew my position regarding manners, and I hoped Cash didn’t make a fool of himself before we got out of the hallway.

  “Mornin, Boss,” Ghost said.

  I gave a nod. “Morning.”

  Reno cleared his throat. “Morning, Boss.”

  Another nod. “Reno.”

  “Morning, Prez,” Cash said.

  It didn’t surprise me that he had to say it. He had no idea that I’d told Andy, but he felt the need to get under my skin, because I’d got under his.

  I turned to face them. “Fellas, this is Andy. Andy, this is Reno, Ghost, and Cash.”

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  Two likewises and one grunt followed.

  I walked her to the entrance of her building, all the while wishing things between us hadn’t got awkward. But, they had. Before I could apologize, say goodbye, or ask when I may see her next, she hugged me.

  When she pulled away, she looked at me for an instant, and then turned around.

  “I need some time to think,” she said over her shoulder.

  My lips parted, but I didn’t speak. Frozen by fear of the unknown, I stood statue-still and watched as she disappeared through the doorway.

  THIRTY-FIVE - Andy

  I couldn’t breathe.

  It had been three miserable days since Baker told me that he was a criminal – and that he may have to lie to me to protect the oath that he’d taken.

  The ache in my chest stood as a reminder that I once had a relationship with a criminal and a lair, and it ended poorly. Although I didn’t feel a relationship with Baker would be plagued with the same exact problems, I feared what might happen. What it boiled down to was whether I was willing to take the risk or not.

  I stared at the Christmas flier, and wondered if anyone would even show up. I hoped so, but considering the successes of my year, I had my doubts. About the time I was ready to take it down and toss it in the trash, the door swung open.

  Mort walked in, took one look at me, and paused. “Who shit in your breakfast cereal?”

  I tried to put on a smile. “Excuse me?”

  “You look like shit, Kid.” He took a step toward me. “Everything okay?”

  I forced a crooked smile. “I’m good.”

  “You look like you got shot at and missed and shit on and hit. Wanna talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  He took another step, paused, and looked me over. “Let’s give it a try. I don’t know if you realize it or not, but you’re uglier’n a stack of turds when you’re upset,” he said lightheartedly.

  I laughed. “Thanks.”

  He sat down. “Don’t be upset if I look away. You’re hell to look at right now.” He glanced at the pictures and then at me. “What’s his name?”

  I covered my face with my hands. “Baker.”

  “Not surprising.”

  I peeked through my fingers at him. “You knew he was going to do this?”

  “I had no idea what he was going to do. Hell, I think he’s a pretty nice fella. But I saw the way you were lookin’ at him a couple of weeks ago.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Like you wanted to eat him.”

  I lowered my hands. “Well, I don’t want to eat him right now.”

  “Want to tell me what happened?”

  “I can’t really.” I lowered my head until my forehead went thump against my desk. After sulking for a few seconds, I looked up. “I don’t feel comfortable telling you about it.”

  His face went stern. “If he did something to hurt you, say the word. Me and my two best friends will pay him a visit. Mister Smith and Mister Wesson. I’ll see if his ass can outrun a bullet.”

  “No. He didn’t do anything.”

  He inched closer, studying my face the entire time. “What then?”

  “What do you know about relationships?”

  He grinned. “I’m like an aeronautical engineer.”

  I scrunched my nose. “What does that mean?”

  “I’m got some damned good theories, but I’ve got minimal success based on hands-on experience.”

  “Have you got time to talk?”

  He pushed himself away from the desk and flopped his forearms against the chair’s armrests. “Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?”

  After thinking about his response, I laughed. “You make me smile.”

  “You make me smile, too, Kid. Except for today. Let’s see if we can change that. Get to talkin.’”

  I looked away. After taking some time to devise a way to say what I needed to, I shifted my eyes to Mort. “I’ve really only been in one relationship, and the guy had certain character traits. He hurt me bad in the end. Really bad. I said when it was over that I’d never put myself in that position again. I found out last weekend that Baker has those exact same traits. Now, I’m scared of what might happen.”

  He let out a laugh. “You’re worried about what might happen?”

  I nodded. “Uh huh.”

  He slapped his hands against the sides of his belly. “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “You wouldn’t know it by lookin’ at me, but there was a day when this belly of mine didn’t exist. I looked about like that Baker fella. Thin and muscular. Didn’t have a lick of common sense, either. The year was nineteen and sixty-eight, and
the place was Khe Sanh, Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Army had just launched the Tet Offensive. I was seventeen at the time, and I tell ya.” His eyes drifted toward the window. “I saw more death in two months than any one man should have to see in a lifetime.”

  He cleared his throat and continued. “I went to take a shit, and it happened just like that. Before I got my pants pulled up, explosions were going off, enemy fire was whizzing by my head, and people were dead or screaming for the good lord to take ‘em all around me. Brady Wiltshire and Sergeant Tom were by a fuel tank with some of the rest of my platoon, and they were shot to pieces. Every one of ‘em was alive, but they weren’t going to be for long if they didn’t get some medical attention. It was darker than the inside of an elephant’s ass, and the enemy was crawling around our base camp like ants on a candy bar. Their only hope was me, and I was a scared seventeen-year-old kid.”

  He gazed blankly at the wall beyond me for a moment before he continued. “There was eleven of ‘em at that fuel tank. Somehow I gathered up enough courage to crawl over there and get one of ‘em. Then, I got another. Gettin’ ‘em was pretty exciting shit, so I got another. About the time I was getting the fifth or sixth, I got shot in the leg. Before I got the last one, I got shot again. That one still hurts.” He rubbed his left thigh and then looked at me. “But guess what?”

  I swallowed heavily. “You uhhm. You got them all?”

  He grinned a shallow grin. “Sure did. Guess what else?”

  “What?”

  “I never would have got one of ‘em out of there if I’d have been worried about what might have happened. Each one of those men lived to see another day because of what did happen. We can’t let what might happen keep us from doing what our heart tells us is right. Remember that, Kid.”

  My eyes welled with tears. I wasn’t sure if it was because of what Mort went through, or because of what I so desperately wanted. I swallowed heavily and gave a mental nod. “Okay.”

  “What’s your heart tell ya?” he asked. “Not your gut. And not your fear talkin’, either. What’s your heart tell ya?”

  It was an easy answer. My heart wanted Baker. “My heart wants him.”

  He stood. “Anything else fucked up?”

  I smiled and shook my head. “Nope.”

  He looked at his watch. “Take the rest of the day off.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He gave me a look. “Wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t.”

  “Okay.” I pushed my chair away from my desk. “Thank you.”

  When he walked toward the door, his gate was prideful, and free of the limp he normally walked with. As he reached for the door handle, he glanced over his shoulder.

  “If we spend time worrying about the what if’s and might be’s in life, we’ll never know what could have been.”

  I mustered the energy to stand. As he pulled the door open, I wiped my eyes with the tips of my fingers. “Thanks, Mort.”

  “See ya, Kid.”

  THIRTY-SIX - Baker

  I preferred to be in the know. As the MC spent our scheduled afternoon at the firing range, I was not knowing a hell of a lot more than I wanted to be. Sadly, there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about any of it.

  Not knowing who may have planted a wiretap in my house gnawed at my nerves. Not knowing what they were hoping to gain through their surveillance was equally unnerving. The real kick in the nuts, however, was not knowing where I stood with Andy. It only took that sliver of uncertainty for me to realize she meant more to me than I had previously been willing to admit.

  I took aim, exhaled half the breath from my lungs, and fired three rounds as fast as I could. Then, three more. Three more. Three more. Three more. After two more, the slide locked open, indicating the weapon was empty. The entire process took roughly five seconds.

  I reeled the target in and inspected it. The seventeen rounds I’d fired were all in the silhouette’s chest, and could have been easily covered with the palm of my hand.

  Ghost tapped me on the shoulder. I repositioned the left side of my earmuffs away from my ear. “What?”

  “Jesus, Bake,” he said. “Pissed off?”

  “Nope. Just giving everyone something to strive for.”

  I was the second-best shot of the MC. Cash, much to everyone’s surprise, was the most accurate with a handgun. It was surprising considering Reno’s military experience and Goose’s love for weapons.

  Cash peered over my shoulder and scoffed. “Looks like One-eyed Pete shot that motherfucker. With his glass eye.”

  “Fuck you. Let’s see yours.”

  He pulled a target out of the lane beside me and unfolded it. “Have a look at this. I’m keeping it. Gonna put the fucker up in the elevator.”

  The silhouette had two bullet holes for eyes, two more nose holes, and a series of holes that formed the mouth. A perfect smiley face if there ever was one.

  “A smiley face?”

  “I’m gonna start doing characters. Rabbits, snakes, and birds and shit. Maybe dogs and fucking cats. Kind of like that creepy assed clown at Mission Beach, only not with balloons. With bullets.”

  “A creepy assed clown and a creepy assed biker,” I said. “You too would make one hell of a team.”

  He folded the target and tucked it under his arm. “Fuck you.”

  We’d been there for half the day, and still had our weekly meeting to attend. After surveying the lanes, discussing recently purchased weapons, and sharing our targets with one another, we rode to the clubhouse.

  The ride was somber, at least for me. Cash could sense that something was off, so he didn’t try to goad me into a street race. By seven o’ clock the meeting was over, and I retired into the comfort of my bed.

  I hadn’t been to bed that early since I shot Mister Walzer’s cat with my B.B. gun, and was forced to go to bed without supper as punishment. I rolled to my side and let the music play without taking the time to actually listen to it.

  No differently than I had on the two previous nights, I eventually reached for the pillow Andy had used. I pulled it against my face, closed my eyes, and inhaled a slow breath.

  Chaunce.

  Mentally, I drifted away. My decision to tell Andy that I was an outlaw was the right one, I was sure of it. Believing it didn’t make accepting her absence any easier. If anything, I questioned my reasons behind the justification for the crimes I committed.

  As I second-guessed my theories, there was a ticking sound from the living room. A few seconds later, there was another. I rolled off the edge of the bed, grabbed my pistol from the top of the nightstand, and crept into the dimly lit living room.

  The metallic tick came again, from the living room window. I lowered myself to my hands and knees, crawled toward the window, and waited. The streetlights cast an eerie glow into the room.

  Tick.

  I slipped my finger against the trigger guard.

  A minute later, another tick.

  Something was hitting the glass. I lifted my head enough to peer over the window ledge. Across the street, the normal winter activities were taking place. The coffee shop was filled with patrons sipping festive drinks and working on their mid-term papers.

  Nothing, however, seemed out of order.

  I lifted my head a little more. Upon seeing her, I exhaled.

  Standing on the sidewalk in a pair of jeans, a USC hoodie, and sneakers, was Andy. At her feet was a pile of cardboard. I grinned and shook my head.

  She waved.

  I set my pistol aside, flipped on the lamp, and waved.

  She picked up the pile of cardboard and turned it to face me. On the surface of what appeared to be a piece of cardboard box, two words were hand-written in bold block letters.

  WHAT DOES

  She swayed back and forth for a few seconds, and then folded the piece over the top of what she held. Two more words were revealed.

  A GIRL

  A few seconds later, she folded it again.

  H
AVE TO

  And then, again.

  DO TO

  She tossed the eight-foot long section of folded cardboard aside. It was clear that at one time, it had been a box. Still holding another, she turned it over, exposing yet two more words.

  GET SOME

  She grinned as she flipped to the next section.

  DICK ON

  She folded the piece out of the way.

  A WEDNESDAY

  She flipped to the last section.

  NIGHT?

  She clutched the cardboard sign and grinned. I raised my index finger. She nodded.

  I rushed to my room, put up the pistol, and ran to the hallway. I pushed the elevator button. Before it came up from the basement, I turned toward the stairs in a dead run.

  In leaps and bounds, I took the stairs down to the first floor and yanked the door open. Her eyes shot from the upper window to me.

  I gestured to my crotch. “To get this dick?”

  She bit against her lower lip and nodded repeatedly.

  “First, she’s got to be named Andy Winslow,” I said. “Second, she’s just got to ask.”

  She bent at the waist, picked up the pile of remaining cardboard, and stood, holding the makeshift signs close to her chest.

  She forced her bottom lip into a pout. “Can I have some dick?”

  As much as I wanted to, I wasn’t going to fuck her unless everything was resolved.

  “Are we good?” I asked.

  “Good as gold,” she said with a smile.

  In my superstitious mind, it was the perfect response. It wasn’t surprising, considering it came from the perfect woman.

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, you can.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN - Andy

  In the past, my sexual satisfaction was in direct proportion to how hard I was being fucked. That belief held true until the night I threw decorative pebbles at Baker’s window.

  His chest was pressed tight against mine. He held me in position with his forearms, which were slipped comfortably beneath my upper back. Slowly and predictably, his hips worked back and forth, giving me every inch of him with each cautious stroke.