by Sky Winters
Allie nodded, taking a good long sip of her coffee. She was going to have to look this flavor up when she got home. “Born and raised. I’m even a frequent shopper at Powell’s Books.”
Lance laughed. “Wow. I have no idea what that is.”
“What about you?” she asked him, sinking into a chair at the kitchen table again even though she was still just in a towel. Her wet hair was dripping onto her, into the mug and onto the tabletop. She needed to dry before clothes were necessary again.
He didn’t seem to mind.
“I’m from here,” he said. “I’ve spent most of my life explaining, ‘No, not the Canadian one’ to people. It used to be frustrating, but now it’s mostly funny.”
He coughed suddenly and spat into the sink.
“You know, you should probably stop smoking,” Allie said. “Speaking of things you hear all the time.”
Lance ran his fingers through his hair, his cigarette now at odds with his coffee cup. “I know,” he said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth with one hand and sipping more coffee with the other. Once that action was successfully executed, he placed the death stick back between his lips and puffed a big cloud of smoke.
“I started smoking later in life, if you can believe that,” he said. “I went from being addicted to heroin and cocaine to being addicted to nicotine. Fffftt. But I guess we’re all addicted to something.”
Allie understood that. Oh boy, did she understand that. And she did not need an addict in her post-addiction life.
She finished her coffee much faster than she really wanted to and set the mug down on the table. “Yeah,” she said. “…I should probably get going.” The clock on the wall told her that it was three in the morning. She wondered if that was correct or if he hadn’t changed the batteries.
Lance shook his head. “No, don’t leave so late. It’s dangerous. Here, why don’t you sleep on my couch bed and I’ll make do in a chair?”
Sighing, she looked at the clock again. He did have a point. It was only going to get later… And she had an hour’s drive she’d need to take in order to get home. She supposed the original, unconscious plan she’d had was to stay the night with him. But that was before she’d discovered the past drug addictions.
At least it was in the past.
“Okay,” she said with a little nod, resigned to this new plan. She got out of her chair and went back over to the couch bed, to gather up her clothing and sit somewhat away from him under the guise of doing that.
As she slowly put her clothes back on, Lance watched her. She was a pretty little thing.
This time, she neglected the tights. After all, they had a galaxy of small holes all over one of the legs. She hadn’t landed as softly as she thought at the time, probably because she was so in shock. And so drunk.
Even though she drank a mug of coffee, the alcohol and the stress from the evening were still making her sleepy. She realized that it was a good idea to stay and not go out driving when she felt this way. Lance was so sweet that she could forgo the walk of shame and just simply walk back to her car tomorrow.
Then she realized she would probably be riding on his bike again tomorrow, to get back to her car… She hoped that the ride wouldn’t be quite so bumpy in the morning.
She went into the bathroom again once she was dressed, and hung up his towel. She’d been clever enough to pack a toothbrush in her purse, but she’d left her contacts case and solution back at her place.
Removing the thin plastic from her irritated eyes, she just threw the contacts into his trashcan. They were a nuisance anyway.
CHAPTER FOUR
Suckered In Too Far
Allie’s alarm went off on her cell phone at seven a.m. She awoke, groggy and disoriented before remembering where she was and whose couch bed she was on. Shutting off her alarm, she looked around and found Lance asleep in one of the nearby chairs in his living room. It was one of those wooden, straight-backed chairs, so it didn’t look too comfortable but he had found some way to manage it.
As quietly as possible, she got out of the bed and put her shoes on. Her face was a mess and so was her hair, but she didn’t want to stay longer than necessary. She’d slept in her clothes and needed to get home to tidy herself up before work the following day. Data entry, secretarial stuff didn’t exactly require looking fancy, but Allie was professional! And she looked anything but at the moment.
Cautiously and quietly, she crept to Lance’s front door and walked outside. She didn’t want to wait around for him to wake up, and she wasn’t exactly keen on getting back on his bike right now, so she decided to just take a cab to The Blind Onion. Besides, she wanted to feel like a responsible, rational adult after last night’s craziness.
Gosh, her head hurt.
When she found her car and got in, she remembered that she needed to wear her glasses because her contacts were gone. Luckily, she had packed her glasses into her purse along with her toothbrush. She had used some forethought at least. She wished she’d used more forethought about the exact type of bad boy she was hooking up with but ahh well. Live and learn. It was too late to change that now.
She drove home, glasses on and pedal to the metal. That coffee he’d shared with her was good. She would need to invest in some of that, she thought as she yawned. Flavored coffee made her like coffee way more than she ever did when it was plain.
She was quite relieved to be on the road again, and she was determined to not give any more thought to Mr. Lance Chase DuBois.
Unfortunately for her, Mr. DuBois wasn’t ready to be an afterthought. He apparently hadn’t gotten the memo that one night stands involved one night with the person, not multiple nights. Not dates.
“Can I see you again?” he texted her a day after her ‘drive of shame’ home.
Allie thought that the app she’d used was meant for hook-ups and nothing serious. She supposed that she could have been wrong. In any case, she should have talked to Lance about what she wanted. She realized that now. And now she definitely felt like a bitch, because he wanted to pursue whatever they might have…
“I can’t,” she replied, deciding that honesty was the best policy, even if it hurt. She had to remove the Band-Aid at some point, right? She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but she couldn’t let him hurt her. She didn’t have a lot of faith in them working out as more than just a one-time thing.
“Why not?” he asked.
She was very glad that they were texting. Actually talking over the phone would be more personal, and there’d be more likelihood of her chickening out and saying yes to something she really should say no to.
“Because I don’t want a bad influence in my life. I used to be addicted to drugs, too. I’ve been doing so well lately. I can’t go back to that. I’m sorry.”
A bad boy looked appealing on paper, but allowing him to take over her life would be too much. He was sexy and kind, but he was also a hot mess. She didn’t want someone who smoked to avoid shooting up, and she didn’t want someone who was in a motorcycle club that did god knew what.
Oh god, she was starting to wonder if she had made a terrible mistake in spending an evening with him!
About a month later, her heard hurt again; like the hangover headache, but worse. Allie was pretty sure that hangovers didn’t work like that. She was about a week late on her period too, so she decided that a quick trip to the pharmacy was in order.
Great, she thought. Getting pregnant from a one night stand is just what I need.
She got the stick and followed the instructions. Sure enough, she was knocked up. By a stranger she had met on the internet. A motorcycle-riding, tattooed, ex-druggie, no less. As much as she didn’t want to, she knew that she needed to go see him again and let him know about their baby.
It felt so weird to even think about it as theirs.
“Hey Lance,” she texted to him instead of just showing up, unexpectedly. “We need to talk.”
She was already getting into her car as s
he told him this, so it wasn’t as though she would back out if he didn’t answer or said no.
Allie was grateful when he did respond, however.
“Yo, okay. Your place or mine? ;)”
He was joking with her now. That was possibly a good thing. It meant that, a month later, he still cared enough about her that seeing her wouldn’t be an annoyance or anything.
“I’m driving to see you,” she replied. Then she slipped her phone into a pocket of her purse and started her car. The long drive wouldn’t feel so long. The fact that she was dreading their conversation would make time go by so, so fast.
She told herself that there was a chance things would work out well. After all, Lance was a recovering addict, not an addict-addict… right? If they were both getting over the same sort of thing, wouldn’t they be able to help themselves? This could actually be good. The problems had arisen between her and Zach because she was a former user and he wasn’t. He got tired of helping her get over things. But Lance wouldn’t get tired of her… He’d understand.
At least, she hoped he would.
When she arrived at his place, after carefully checking her GPS at every stoplight, it seemed, she realized that he wasn’t home. His bike wasn’t in the driveway. Before blaming him for being gone, she reminded herself that she hadn’t told him when she’d be there and she couldn’t therefore assume that he’d be at home all day.
“I’m here!” she texted him. “Where are you?”
“The boys and I are having a club meeting at the onion,” he replied. “There’s a key under my doormat.”
Allie took that as a sign that she shouldn’t go to The Blind Onion and confront him at the moment. She found the key and was about to just let herself inside his apartment, but she wasn’t planning to stay over. She didn’t want to be a booty call, if that’s what he was thinking.
Plopping the spare key into her purse in case she would still need it, she got back into her car and drove to The Blind Onion anyway. She wasn’t afraid of a bunch of biker guys. This was important!
However, when she stepped into the pizza place, shit was going down. There was what appeared to be the endings of a fight happening. Guns and knives were drawn. The air in the room was intense, and smelled more like beer and perspiration than pepperoni.
“Oops, sorry,” she said when all eyes were suddenly on her. The jingling bell on the front door hadn’t worked in her favor. “I guess you’re closed.”
The guy in the dead center of the room pointed his gun at her and scowled.
Allie wasn’t going to be able to just back out of this one.
“Any of you punks know this chick?” he asked the group of other men who were gathered around, standing with their fists clenches and their various forms of weaponry out.
At last, she spotted Lance. He was standing near the front door and he backed towards her a little bit, shielding her from the gun. “She’s with me,” he said. “She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Now I’m only going to say this one more time,” the big guy with a gun growled, rounding on the rest of the group and brandishing his gun in all of their faces. “Vinnie here owes me three thousand dollars… I score for Vinnie, he pays me. That’s how it’s supposed to work.”
Allie assumed that the guilty-looking, rat-faced guy was Vinnie.
Lance had told her that the motorcycle club was made up of his friends. Some friends…
While the scary guy with a gun was distracted by this Vinnie person, Allie crept back out of the restaurant. She took off running as soon as the door jingled again behind her. She didn’t bother with her car, but ran as far up the street as possible in order to get away, knowing that the guy wasn’t going to chase her down while he had a whole bike club to antagonize.
Once she was far enough away, she stopped and pulled out her cell phone. She called the police and reported a man with a gun in The Blind Onion.
Lance hadn’t had a gun. She didn’t see him holding any weapons, actually. Was he insane? Or was he just smarter than the rest of them?
She texted him that she’d alerted the cops and to meet her back at his house. She needed to talk to him and then she would be out of his hair for good.
The cops showed up and arrested several of the people at The Blind Onion, most importantly of all the drug dealer who’d been threatening all of them. The officers questioned Lance, but did not take him in because he was unarmed and was working in the establishment.
Two hours later, he was able to lock up and head home. He didn’t know what Allie needed to speak to him about, but he had a feeling that she wasn’t planning to be his girlfriend now; not after what she’d just witnessed.
Lance arrived at his building and managed to nap a parking spot directly next to hers. Cutting off his motorcycle’s engine, he dismounted and stored his helmet inside the seat. He trudged up the stairs of his building, not sure what to expect and not looking forward to whatever it was.
It had been a pretty shitty day.
“Hey, Allie,” he said, giving her a sweet smile as he came inside and shut the door behind him. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
She’d been sitting on the couch bed, but she quickly stood up when he came through the door. She was not smiling. “What the fuck was that all about?” she asked, her voice a shouted whisper. “You told me you had kicked your drug habits!”
He put his hands up defensively. “I have,” he replied. “But some of the members of our club ain’t so lucky, okay?”
Her face suddenly softened from a frown to a pout. “I was really scared.”
“I know,” he said. Lance came to her and wrapped his arms around her in a hug.
She rested her head against his chest. It felt good to be held like that, even though she was going to be losing it in just a few more moments.
“I came here to tell you two things,” Allie said, looking up into his brown eyes. “First of all, and brace yourself… I’m pregnant.”
His arms loosened and he gaped at her.
Well, this was not a severance from him. It was quite the opposite, in fact!
“And secondly,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t think I should see you anymore. You’re too dangerous.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Coffee And Cigarettes
A long period of silence followed as Lance looked at Allie in disbelief. At first, he thought that he had misunderstood what she was saying, but there was no mistaking the fact that she’d said she didn’t want to be with him because he was dangerous. After working so hard to make his life better and more suitable for a girlfriend like her, the last thing he wanted to hear was that word. He had changed a lot since he was a user. And he was willing to change even more if it would make her happy. His mouth went from shocked and open to an agitated frown, but then he smiled and laughed a little. It was a hostile sort of laugh. A ‘you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me’ kind of laugh.
“You know I’m right,” Allie said. “Unless your brain temporarily shut off back there, you know what your life is like. It’s no place for a child. I’ve been trying so hard to change my life around. This is the reasoning I’ve needed.”
Lance continued to smile at her. She couldn’t tell if it was menacing or goofy. It was right on the line between those two types of smile.
“Right after the police came and questioned me, and took a bunch of my friends away… I quit the club.” He looked her in the eyes. “You’re right. It’s not a good place to be in, surrounded by former addicts who are still struggling. I can’t stay clean if I’m around them… I want to clean up my act. Not just for you, but partially for you.”
Allie didn’t know what to say. “You like me a lot, huh?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Is that bad?”
She looked down, blushing. Before the baby, she might have said yes. After all, she was trying to just have some fun and didn’t want to be in a relationship. But now… Well, fate hadn’t really given her a choice.
“
No, it’s not bad,” she said. “I suppose we do have more in common than I expected.”
He went to her and gave her a hug. “It’s all going to be okay,” he said. “I promise. We’ll work together to make the best little happy existence we can, okay?”
She looked into his eyes, sizing him up a little. He was so handsome and kind. She didn’t want to blame him for shit he couldn’t help. The dealer had been there to threaten one of Lance’s biker club friends, not Lance. And Lance hadn’t been packing heat or anything quite so ludicrous.
“What are you going to do now that you’re out of your club?” she asked him. She did not want him to give up riding his motorcycle or being in a club with his friends, she just would prefer it if he be more selective with who he spent his time with. There had to be motorcycle clubs around there that weren’t so destructive. Maybe he could join a pizza-lovers motorcycle club?
He shrugged. “Start a new club, I guess. Fly solo for a while til I figure things out.”
Allie smiled at him. “Well, you don’t have to fly solo. You can fly duo. With me.” She smirked slightly. “That sounded better in my head.”
Lance laughed. “Aw, that’s cute. I thought for sure that you were never going to want to be on my bike again.”
Shaking her head, Allie released herself from his hold and went out to the kitchen to make herself some of that heavenly banana-flavored coffee. “As long as you promise me that you’re not going to drive it drunk ever again, I’ll ride with you.”
The coffee maker only made about two cups at a time. As she stood in the kitchen to guard the coffee as it was made, she gazed over the kitchenette and the living room that she could see from her vantage point. They both lived in small, cramped, studio apartments… That was going to need to change. A lot of things were going to be changing.
“Can we take it one day at a time?” she asked him.
Lance smiled and let out a soft chuckle. “That’s the only way to live.”
Since Allie had a better job and Lance’s experience as a pizza chef was more flexible in cities, they decided to search for a two bed-room apartment in Portland instead of staying in Vancouver. They both dealt with the wraths of their separate landlords and were eventually able to move in together in an apartment building that was a short walk away from Powell’s Books and Voo Doo Donut, in the heart of Portland.
