Phoenix

by Trent Jordan

  “Thanks, Father,” I said. “I know what I need to do.”

  Even if it will take time.

  Time that, depending on what the Fallen Saints do, may not be granted to us.

  Jess

  Sunday Afternoon

  It was time to see what sort of a man Phoenix could be when given a second chance.

  And unlike before, when I had put a ton of pressure on myself to deliver a great date, I really didn’t feel any on my end this time. Certainly, I wasn’t about to show up in terrible clothing, poorly made up, or with a flippant attitude, but the extra pressure was off. I didn’t feel as much of an urgent desire to make a good impression as he might have.

  Besides, I knew that now that I’d already put one foot out the door, with the other one lifting off the ground to also go out, there wasn’t any worry about getting entangled in something I didn’t want to be in.

  Or, rather, need to be in. But... worry about that when it gets to that point.

  Of course, some thoughts were easier to follow than others, and some thoughts were easier to consider following than others.

  Nevertheless, as I heard the sound of the motorcycle drawing nearer to the same hiking spot we’d gone on a week before—I had teased Phoenix quite a bit about seemingly wanting to repeat history—the thoughts about how this didn’t need to be serious faded into the recesses of my mind. All I really cared about was enjoying the next few hours, however they turned out; thoughts of what this could mean would either naturally arise in conversation, or they’d best be put to the side for later.

  Phoenix’s bike emerged around the corner, and already, even just from seeing his position on the bike, he looked much more engaged. He hadn’t leaned back lazily a week ago, but his hunch forward looked much more rugged and certain. It was like he was confident of where he was going, and not just drifting from one place to the next. He was controlling his life; life was not controlling him.

  He parked his bike, dropped the kickstand down, and smirked at me.

  “So would ‘hi’ suffice?” he said. “Or do I have to say something more to show you I’m not in a foul mood?”

  “Ah, so it’s not going to be a sequel to last time,” I said playfully.

  The tone and vibe I felt mirrored that of when I served drinks behind the bar, which was a strange thing to admit, considering I adopted those features for the sake of generating tips. But I didn’t feel bad about it because I wasn’t adopting this cheerful, upbeat feeling for everyone in sight; I was doing it for Phoenix and Phoenix alone.

  “Well, however you want to say it, this will be better than last time,” he said.

  He put his arm around the small of my back as he led me to the trail. It was a short-lived gesture, but it was one that set the tone very quickly—not only was this not going to be a repeat of last week, it wasn’t even going to be in the same league.

  “Well, you must have had a great week then,” I said.

  “Somewhat,” he said. “I haven’t gotten shot at, so that’s a plus.”

  I laughed, felt a little guilty when he didn’t laugh, and then let a few more bottled-up laughs escape when he smirked at me.

  “I hope that’s not how you evaluate how your week goes,” I said.

  “Not at all,” he said.

  “Then how do you evaluate it?”

  Phoenix scrunched his eyes and mumbled to himself.

  “By how well acquainted with the truth I am and how well I am able to handle it.”

  It was a rather... peculiar, but not in a bad way, means of answering the question. Most people would answer by how happy they were, how much money they’d made, how their relationships were...

  But Phoenix just sounded like a philosopher sitting on a rock; it was not the kind of thing one would expect from someone who worked in a repair shop and drove motorcycles with a bunch of men.

  Just like how his father was.

  Then again, if there was one thing I had learned during my time at Brewskis, it was that the bikers often were the people who said the smartest things, because they weren’t restrained by appearances or having to kiss ass.

  “All right, Mr. Wise Guy,” I said with a smile. “What sort of truths did you get into this week?”

  “Oh, some that I’ll discuss later,” he said coyly. “Not sure some of them are the type of things that you’d want to hear at the beginning of a second first date.”

  “A second first date? Is that what we’re calling this?”

  “Well, just saying ‘a second date’ would imply that there was a first date worth following up on.”

  Well, put that way, he does make sense.

  “Valid point,” I said, stroking my chin, playing professor to the student arguing before me. “So, what are some good truths that you’d like to discuss?”

  A wicked grin came across Phoenix’s face, the kind that left me happily nervous about what he was about to say.

  “How about that I like you and that I’m quite grateful to have this second chance?”

  “Aww.”

  And then I laughed.

  “That was a truth you just now discovered?”

  Phoenix gently shoved me as I kept laughing. I had no idea where this side of Phoenix had come from; it was just a week ago that he’d been so surly I had literally driven off on the date. I had seen him crack the occasional joke at Brewskis, but bikers in general weren’t the most jovial group.

  Well, some were. It just depended on the individual. But most of the good regulars I had at Brewskis, like Lane and Patriot, or Lucius and Parker, simply came up, got their drinks, and then retreated to their own worlds. It was only at a distance, like a visitor at a zoo, that I could see how they interacted.

  I supposed some questions weren’t worth asking, at least not this early. I still wanted to keep seeing Phoenix’s good side; there’d be plenty of time to see his full side, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Will there be, though? If you intend to keep on moving?

  “It’s a truth I’ve known from the moment I laid eyes on you.”

  “Aw, how romantic,” I said with an exaggerated eye roll, though I was grateful for the switch in topic. “Is that line how you get all the girls?”

  “All the girls?” Phoenix said with a smile. “I actually don’t have that many serious relationships.”

  “Why?” I said, still teasing him. “Because the life of a biker gives you too many girls throwing themselves at you?”

  “Not really.”

  I gave him a doubting look.

  “OK, maybe yes. But I think part of it is because...”

  He struggled to get the words out, though, he at least seemed like he wanted to get the words out—a far cry from how he had been before.

  “I think my father,” he said, though even as the words emerged, they did so with great difficulty. “Well, my father was a great guy. Really looked after me, really cared for me. Especially when... anyway.”

  Wonder what he was going to say.

  “My father took care of me, but I wonder if he took too good care of me,” he said. “Dad always took me to the Black Reapers clubhouse whenever he could, and it was pretty apparent by the time I was thirteen or so that I was going to join the club. My father never even attempted to remarry, and while he didn’t throw me into the party life, he also didn’t hide it if I came across it.”

  He shrugged.

  “Can’t exactly say he was overbearing or like a helicopter dad, just... well, when your path is so carved out for you, and only a very select few members of society will understand your path, it’s hard to find people to date, you know?”

  “I do,” I said, and I actually did more than I think Phoenix gave me credit for.

  My father hadn’t been as positively involved as Phoenix’s had, but it was clear given my history with my father, it would take a specific type of person to accept and embrace that.

  “How so?” Phoenix said.

  I could readily admit that I was not ready for
him to turn the tables.

  “The... the outcome of my experiences with my father was similar to yours.”

  Mercifully, just as the topic changed from one father to the next, I could see the peak of the trail come into view, and with it, “downtown” Ashton. I hurried up to a light jog, to which Phoenix grumbled about how he only lifted weights, he didn’t jog. Nevertheless, he jogged just behind me to the edge of the trail. He put his hands on his hips and looked between me and the view.

  “Can’t pick just one,” he said.

  Wow!

  Maybe he’s overcompensating for last time, but it’s not a bad overcompensation.

  “So, what now?” I said. “I hope you didn’t have all your energy for just this one hike!”

  I was teasing him, of course. But what I didn’t expect was that the answer to my question would be a very familiar one.

  “Well, time for Will’s Wiches, obviously,” he said.

  “For real?” I said. “Are you trying to give me déjà vu?”

  “On the contrary,” he said with a smirk. “I’m trying to give you new memories of each place. Didn’t think you’d want the old memories.”

  That’s actually a pretty good point.

  “You’re lucky you’re right,” I said.

  And I’m lucky he’s right too.

  We took separate vehicles down to the sandwich shop, though I could easily see that Phoenix was hoping for the alternative. I wasn’t opposed to it, most especially since I knew how good it would feel to ride a motorcycle—but I was not yet getting on the back of his.

  For one, riding a motorcycle might as well have been a de facto gateway drug to riding something else. For another, just practically speaking, if I rode on his bike from the park to the sandwich shop, it locked me into spending as much time with him as he wanted. And as great as the early part of the date was, I wasn’t quite willing to give up my flexibility yet.

  But if he kept being in good, playful spirits...

  Well, I wasn’t a complete prude.

  He beat me to Will’s and had already gotten us a table outside. I ordered a ham and cheese sub, while Phoenix got two grilled chicken sandwiches.

  “Healthy and voluminous, huh?” I said.

  “Hey, you don’t get to be a biker like this without eating so much,” he chuckled. “I’m just trying to make sure all of the gains go to my muscles and not to my gut.”

  “Some of the older bikers know how to increase their waistline, that’s for sure,” I joked.

  But the younger ones? The ones who lifted weights in their free time, who ate a ton of steak and chicken and meat, the ones who got tattoos and didn’t mind walking around shirtless whenever they got the chance?

  Well, let’s just say it was a good thing that as a bartender, it was somewhat natural for me to flirt whenever a customer engaged. Even if such flirtations were temporary and short-lived, they were a nice little outlet.

  “So now you’ve made a good impression at the park,” I said as our sandwiches came out. “You’re making a good impression here.”

  And now...

  “I take it you didn’t plan for the date to end here.”

  Phoenix shook his head as he took an enormous bite of the first sandwich, nearly taking a quarter of the entire thing down.

  “I actually didn’t plan anything past this,” he said. “Not because I didn’t want the date to end at this point, but because I really had no idea what I was going to do after.”

  He took another bite. I sat in silence, curious to hear what was next. I, too, wanted the date to keep going forward, but I didn’t want to suggest something that could have been misconstrued by Phoenix as innuendo.

  “But I have an idea,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  He took another bite, finishing his first sandwich in the time it had taken me just to take two bites of mine.

  “Going to a hospital so you don’t choke on the food you’ve eaten so quickly?”

  “Hah, this is slow in comparison to the norm. Remember, I’m talking to you.”

  After a brief pause, Phoenix took an enormous bite of his second sandwich.

  “I think this is the cliché point when I turn to you and say let’s grab a drink,” he said with a smirk. “But I’m going to assume going to a bar would be like going to the office.”

  “Somewhat, not as much as you’d think,” I said.

  “Well, in that case, this is my proposal,” he said.

  His eyes narrowed on me, and he seemed to stare deep into my soul. He even put his sandwich down. I had a strong feeling I knew what he was going to say.

  “Let’s grab drinks at my place.”

  There it is.

  What was my immediate reaction?

  Excitement.

  I couldn’t even lie. Phoenix might as well have been a different person on this date compared to the last one. He was witty, funny, seductive, and charming. If anyone was being cold and distant, I was by refusing to ride his motorcycle.

  The second reaction was a little bit of fear—not that he’d hurt me, but that I was allowing myself to fantasize about something happening way too soon. It was, in his words, the “second first date” and I’d only slept with guys on the first date in my late teens, when I’d gone on something of a sexual rampage, desperately seeking connection and intimacy that I did not have elsewhere; many of those times barely qualified as “dates.”

  But the reaction that eventually settled in, the one that took hold, was one of “why not?”

  I was moving away in a couple of months, and that had been finalized. So why not?

  Phoenix was a biker, a hot guy. He probably—well, not necessarily—was not relationship material, but... physically? Why not?

  He and I had an attraction to each other. We were both sober. We both knew what we were getting into. Neither of us wanted a kid right now, so there would be no confusion about what more action would involve.

  So... why not?

  Because you like him for more than just this and this is going to confuse the hell out of you and make you question leaving?

  Because he likes you for more than just your body and you’re going to hurt him if you go down this path?

  “Sure, why not?”

  I sure had to hope that logic was wiser than my heart, because as soon as I said those words, even if the feeling had been “why not,” there was a nagging sense of “here’s why not, you dummy” that I couldn’t shake.

  “If I may, allow me to give you a ride back to my place,” Phoenix said. “I know you didn’t let me give you one down here. But it’s all part of the experience now.”

  He didn’t even try to hide that he had secondary intentions. The smirk on his face hadn’t vanished from the moment he asked his original question.

  To be frank, I was going along with these intentions. I did conceal that there was a voice in me doubting the intelligence of the move, but I was hiding that from myself as much as him.

  “If I may, allow me to accept your offer.”

  Phoenix gave the kind of grunt that all men give when they got something to their way—a kind of satisfied grunt, just enough to make their excitement known, but not so much as to be as over the top. His just happened to be far sexier and far more arousing than most.

  I knew the drill for motorcycles as well as any woman did; it wasn’t like I didn’t spend a lot of time around them. I knew the vibrations would feel good, I knew the initial rush would produce a spike of adrenaline, and I knew that there would be a split second on every turn where I would wonder if we were about to tip over. All of those things, while still pleasant and enjoyable, were not overwhelming.

  But what I was starting to become curious for, what I was starting to allow myself to desire, was a chance to learn what Phoenix felt like beneath those clothes. To be sure, his taut face, rigid jawline, and blocky shoulders suggested that he did very well in taking care of himself. I didn’t think I was about to hug a pillow.


  But what would it feel like when my arms pressed against his abs? Would they be taut, tight, and muscular? Would they be flat? Or would they feel kind of blocky?

  We made our way to the bike, my mind going into sexual overdrive. Calm down. If we didn’t make it out of this parking lot...

  “Hop on,” he said with a voice deeper than normal.

  When I did, the first thing I noticed was how wide his back was. It was like trying to wrap my arms around an upside-down triangle, and the tightness and size of those muscles provided a lot of promise.

  Sure enough, when I held my hands around him and squeezed, I could feel the individual abs, their ridges in between a sign that he was indeed packing at least a six-pack, maybe even an eight-pack. They tightened and braced as Phoenix revved the engine.

  “Hold on!”

  I don’t think you have to ask me to do that, I thought as he pulled out of the parking lot, leaving my car—and my caution—behind.

  Phoenix held his hand out to help me off the bike. It was such a cliché move, but I had to say, it was amazing how such moves suddenly felt romantic. He could have spoken dialogue straight out of any famous romantic movie, I could have recognized it, and I still would have swooned for him.

  But one question was bugging me, one that had started to enter my mind as I realized what I might literally be walking into.

  Did he keep his place clean?

  I tried not to have unrealistic hopes. I knew that a man who worked as a mechanic by day and hung around guys who drank beer most high schoolers found disgusting was probably not going to be the model of perfection, but I figured that since he was in his late twenties, he’d at least have some semblance of organization.

  But as someone who was so clean, I knew I’d probably have to recalibrate my expectations for his place.

  “Welcome,” he said as he pushed open the door.

  The first thing I felt was enormous relief at the fact that there were not beer bottles everywhere, pizza boxes strewn about, or trash overflowing from the containers. It wasn’t perfect; there were a few dishes in the sink that hadn’t been put away. But all things considered, it was an actual, well-organized place, certainly above what I would have expected for Phoenix.