by Trent Jordan
Well, I didn’t peg him as a violent person, but I wasn’t exactly rushing to find out the truth.
He didn’t say a word to me as I hopped on the bike and wrapped my arms around him. This in itself felt like a terrible decision, but the alternative was to risk flying off the bike. I awkwardly hovered between loosening my grip around him and tightening it at certain spots. I hoped he understood, but I wasn’t sure he wanted to understand.
Finally, we pulled up to the parking lot of Will’s Wiches, where my car was still parked. He pulled up next to it, and I hopped off.
“Phoenix, I’m sor—”
I never got to finish my words. Phoenix drove out of the parking lot in a hurry, the squeal of his tires burning my ears. I had to put my hands up to my ears, but my eyes didn’t need any adjusting to see what was happening.
Without so much as a goodbye, let alone a kiss or a promise to see me again—or, hell, just even a couple of words—Phoenix had sped out of my life.
I had nothing holding me back. I could leave now if I wanted. I could move wherever I wanted without feeling guilty.
And it left me feeling like complete shit.
Phoenix
Fucking kidding me, right?
Finally found someone I thought I could do something long-term with and... fuck, seriously.
Seriously!
I didn’t drive in traffic so much as I just weaved through it, ignorant of any and all traffic laws. If any cop had caught me at this moment, I could have easily gotten about a dozen different tickets for who knew what violations. None of them, though, felt as cruel or cold as what Jess had just done to me.
She couldn’t have, I don’t know, fucking told me that little piece of info before I took her for a hike? Before I spent time at the sandwich shop? Before I bared my soul to her about my father? Before we had sex?
And now she was going to run off to live in some other fucking place?
Was it any wonder I had trust issues with anyone else? Like, how the fuck was I ever supposed to believe anyone else ever had my back when my own father and the most recent woman I’d fallen for had turned out to be harboring serious secrets?
Fucking bullshit.
The only thing I knew as I left the parking lot was that I was leaving Jess. And I was not going back to her.
I started driving toward the Gray Reapers’ clubhouse, but that was more because I didn’t know where else to go. I didn’t want to go home, not with her scent still lingering there. You think I wanted to have a constant reminder that she’d slept in my bed? Yeah, change the sheets, but a woman’s scent wasn’t the kind of thing that you just washed off; it was the kind of thing that remained, as much a part of my conscious memory as it was actual scented particles.
I couldn’t get a fucking drink, not at this early in the morning, not from a bar—and besides that, Tom’s Billiards was the only fucking place I could think of, and I’d never bothered to exactly learn Jess’ shifts.
Actually, come to think of it, I hadn’t bothered to learn much about Jess. We’d only been on two dates.
And yet... and yet, the intensity of everything that had happened, the vulnerability that we had shared, everything that had transpired had left me feeling like we’d been dating for two months, maybe even longer. I had never clicked with anyone as fast and as deep as Jess, and I felt pretty confident in saying she felt the same way.
Which made it all the more fucking painful that she saw fit to tell me she wasn’t long for Ashton too late. Because she was scared.
Like it fucking matters.
I hoped seeing the Gray Reapers’ headquarters would clear my mind up some, but all it did was further inflame my annoyance at everything. This was the one space where I felt like I could be myself... and even then, it was only because the last place I’d felt that way had...
Well, it was a little more complicated than the one-line answer, wasn’t it? But that was a real bitch to admit when all I wanted were simple, one-line answers. Everything felt like a real bitch right now.
And it was made all the worse by the fact that the usual comforts—alcohol, pussy, a long evening bike ride—weren’t going to calm me as they usually would have.
I killed my bike and stormed into the clubhouse, found an open chair, and plopped down on it. A few of the club members were making casual conversation, and Owen started to say my name, but as soon as he merely looked at me—not even made eye contact with me, just saw my sulking present—he shut up and turned away.
I sat there and stewed. I had no plan. I just wanted to wallow in anger. I just wanted to sit here, “meditate,” and lose myself in my rage.
“Phoenix.”
I looked up at Cole. Cole looked... actually, like a fucking good leader. His voice had concern, but he wasn’t intimidated by my scowl or murderous expression. He had spoken to me as a man, not as a boorish President who needed to show how awesome or how detached he was.
You are no Lane.
But that doesn’t mean I want—
“I need to talk to you and Owen. Alone.”
Oh, so now we want privacy? Guess we’re not going to have our meetings out in the open, huh?
I was just being a dick. No one could escape my wrath, so I guess I needed to just keep it shut inside. Cole deserved a lot of things, but he did not deserve my anger.
I got up from my chair, put my hands in my pocket, and motioned for Cole to lead me wherever. But he didn’t move. Instead, he tilted his head to the side, as if he was supposed to magically understand whatever request I had made of him. I groaned, told myself to stop acting like a whiny bitch, and walked over to him.
“Everything’s not all good, I take it,” he said.
At least he didn’t ask a stupid and obvious question.
Just made a stupid and obvious statement.
“Turns out Jess is no better than the Black Reapers.”
OK, that was a little bit unfair. But not as unfair as the bombshell she’d dropped on me right after sex.
“Sorry, man,” Cole said.
But he didn’t say anything else. Didn’t say women sucked. Didn’t say she sucked.
Of all people, I would have thought Cole would be the one to take my side on this. Cole, the man who got passed over by women for his shithead brother. Cole, the one who had every reason to scorn the world. Cole...
A guy who had actually gotten in much better shape and looked far more rugged than he had when his father had first died. I wasn’t going to say that he ever looked like a bitch, but if anyone had grown in the past year, it was Cole Carter. Before, he was a boy, perhaps like I had been.
Now, because we had no choice, we were men.
“Unfortunately, though, I’m going to need your help with something tonight. And it’s not something that can wait.”
Well, this should just be fucking grand.
“I need you and Owen to accompany me to meet the Black Reapers.”
“The fuck?”
I was too clouded by anger, too pissed off to really try to ponder any rationale for why this might be happening or what the consequences would be. The only thing that really came to mind was the utter conviction that life or God or karma or whatever the fuck there was must have been having a grand old time fucking with me right now. It really didn’t feel like much more could get thrown my way, but I knew having that thought was just daring fate to fuck me over.
“They’re more receptive to some of the things we’ve been asking for, and they want to come to the negotiating table,” Cole said in such a calm voice that it just pissed me off more. Couldn’t he fucking see I was hurting? “So, we’re going to try to put our differences aside and unite. But I’m not stupid. I’m bringing my VP and my SAA for protection. Hence, you two.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of faith for someone that you’re supposedly uniting with,” I said, the venom in my voice so strong that it felt like I had to get the words out just to avoid poisoning myself. “If you two were really—”
“Phoenix,” Cole said. “I’m happy to talk to you about whatever happened with Jess. But you are coming with me tonight. And I expect you to protect me, not to start a fight with the Black Reapers.”
God. Fucking. Damnit.
I sighed and gave a one-off nod. I was going to do this not because I liked or even was neutral about the Black Reapers, and not because I wanted something. I was doing this out of a sense of duty.
It seemed like about the only thing that I could really hold on to these days.
“Can’t wait to see what surprises pop up now,” I muttered.
“There will probably be some, but...”
Even Cole recognized nothing he was going to say would sound rational. Not when it came to dealing with the assholes in Springsville.
“We’ll deal with them when we get there,” Cole said, shaking his head. “Meet back here at seven o’clock tonight. Whatever you do until then is up to you. Just make sure you can function when the evening comes.”
Cole had the good sense to leave me alone. I went back to the very chair I’d sat down in and plopped my ass back in it.
That lasted for all of about five minutes before I decided some booze—some, I wasn’t going to be derelict in my duty—and something on the TV to pass the time would work a hell of a lot better. But that meant...
Well, not like going home meant that I was in a permanent quarantine with the memory of Jess. It also wasn’t like I could never return home; I’d just have to deal with that lingering scent once before I fumigated the shit out of the place.
“Ah, shit,” I grumbled as I rose from the chair, stretched out, and headed to my bike. A couple of people called my name, but I just pretended not to hear them. I just needed to get this part of everything over and done with.
I revved the bike to life, slowly pulled out of the lot, and drove slightly above the speed limit. Oh, I was still pissed off; I just knew I had all the time in the world to get home.
And when I did, when I got to the front door, I paused. I was surprised at myself—it wasn’t anger I was feeling. It wasn’t rage or determination to get Jess’ scent out of my living quarters as soon as I could.
It was sadness.
Sadness that someone who had so invigorated and excited me had turned out to be nothing more than a wild one-night stand. Sadness that the person in my head was not the person in reality. Sadness that I was still on the prowl for someone I could love, trust, and confide in.
OK, maybe that last part was a little sissy.
But...
Well, not like I had anyone in this world right now that I could genuinely say I loved. That was probably a little fucked up... probably.
Just get it over with, you pussy. Stop bitching.
I pushed open the door to my place. At first, it just smelled like my apartment.
And then I got to the bedroom, and immediately, her scent blitzed my nostrils. And fuck... it was so pleasant. She was so great...
She was different.
No.
She would’ve been different.
She would have been the woman that I finally felt comfortable going after. Because, see, there was one thing that I had never admitted to myself, let alone Jess. It wasn’t just my father’s presence that made it difficult for me to seriously date—it was the lack of my mother’s.
Her absence made it difficult for me to trust women. I never assumed that one would stick around for a long time. I would never let myself get close, even when being one of the young guys made it easy for me to draw certain gals at the club. Simply put, I always knew how the story played out. Girl meets boy. Boy and girl connect. Boy falls in love with girl.
And then girl is never seen again right when boy is ready to start feeling.
Maybe Jess, being a bartender and being something of an “unavailable” target just made her that much more alluring. Maybe I always knew, somehow, someway, that she would push me away in this fashion, making it easier for me to keep coming to her. Maybe, maybe, maybe...
Didn’t matter what the reason was. What mattered was that I was hurting. Will hurt for a while. And I don’t know when...
The harder I try to feel better, the worse I end up feeling.
I ripped the sheets off the bed as I cursed loudly, trying to keep them all by my hips so the smell wouldn’t hit me any harder than it already was. I stuffed them into my washing machine, threw a detergent pack in there, and had the lid half-closed.
I took one more sniff.
Damn, at least Jess smelled really fucking good. At least if this was the last time I had any sense of her, it was nice.
And then I closed the lid, turned on the washer, and grabbed a bottle of Febreze. Making a path through the apartment, I must have sprayed so much of the bottle I’d probably choke on the damn thing if I didn’t leave. Just for good measure, I made a second run around the place.
I then grabbed all of the clothes I’d worn the night before, including the ones I had on still—except for my cut—and stuffed them into the washer. I didn’t care if it ruined anything in there; I just wanted it fucking cleansed of any scent. There could be no memory, no trace, no evidence Jess was ever here.
As soon as I had found everything that I had worn, slept in, or rested on and thrown it into the washer, I pulled open my phone and found her number. I deleted all of our texts—which, surprisingly enough, were not that long or fleshed out—and then hovered over “Delete Number.” This wasn’t like I had a vault of information I could pull out and work my magic on. Once I deleted this, that was it—
I pressed it and confirmed the deletion before I could change my mind.
I tossed my phone on the couch. I walked like a zombie over to my bedroom and sat on the edge of the sheets-free bed. I let out a very long sigh.
I’d erased Jess’ presence from this apartment. I’d erased her from my phone. I didn’t have social media, but it wasn’t hard to imagine that I would have deleted her from there if I’d had the chance.
But for all of that, I could still “see” her just as easily as I saw her last night. She was still a presence that I couldn’t get rid of, maybe didn’t want to get rid of. She was mine for a night, and though she may have taken control, I was the one who let her have her way. I was the one in charge.
And suddenly, despite running things, I was the one being run around. Funny—and sad—how that all worked.
It was now night, and it seemed like a cruel addition to the world that the sky above had filled with clouds that threatened to start raining at any moment.
It was strange, really. I feared rain far more than I feared bullets. There was just something about the feeling of going eighty miles per hour into a rainstorm, even with a helmet with a visor on, that just felt akin to getting pricked by dozens and dozens of needles. It fucking sucked, no matter how you spun it.
But on the drive over to Springsville, whether because the sound of our engines drowned out any noise nature threw away or because there wasn’t any actual thunder, the red flags never went beyond the black, puffy clouds. Well, the red flags of nature, at least.
When we arrived at the Black Reapers’ headquarters—a building that I recognized immediately, yet one that felt extraordinarily foreign all the same—a row of all remaining Black Reaper bikes lined the outside of the building. The repair shop still showed signs of damage from the last attack, but the clubhouse looked cleaned. Three figures stood at the outside, and though it was nighttime here and there was no exterior lighting on, the height of the figures gave away who it was.
Lane, the President.
Axle, the Vice President.
And fucking Butch, my father’s killer.
“Where’s Father Marcellus?” I growled.
“Not part of the meeting group,” Cole said.
No shit. Would be nice to have someone play the part of mediator, though.
I heard someone snickering from the shadows. I wanted to extend my hand for a handshake and then run
it up to the necks of every last one of those fuckers, choking the life out of all of them.
“Father Marcellus is home,” Lane said. “I can’t afford to have all of my club officers in one place anymore. Not with the uptick of attacks by the Fallen Saints. Attacks that will be coming to Ashton if you don’t join us.”
Pleasant. Negotiating by ominous, distant threat.
“Let’s not do this outside,” Cole said.
“We’re not,” Lane said, and with a wave of his hand, he led us into their church, a room that I had seen so often from the outside but never once gotten actual access to. I would have had better luck getting into the pope’s headquarters at the Vatican than I would have of going into the Black Reapers’ hall without consequence.
All of which was to say... church for the Black Reapers was mighty disappointing. I wasn’t sure what I had expected, but a bare room with a wooden table that had the Black Reapers’ logo by the president’s chair—which in itself was no object of luxury—was not what had come to mind. I figured there’d at least be photos of Roger Carter, maybe a bar with fancy liquor, maybe... I didn’t fucking know.
I supposed we were bikers, not C-level employees, but in my fucked-up head, it was just another indicator of the illusion the Black Reapers lived on. The illusion that has since been shattered and stomped on.
But the contents and interior design of the church was the least of our concerns, given that, one, we were not meeting on neutral ground, and two, all of the Black Reapers’ club members had congregated just outside, ready to murder at the whim of the arrogant Lane, the harsh Axle, or the ruthless Butch.
By coming here and acquiescing to Lane’s terms, Cole was still trying to garner the favor and the attention of his big brother.
Lane sat at the head of the table, with Axle and Butch to his left and right. We took the other end of the table, with me on Butch’s side. It wasn’t a purposeful move, but it felt so appropriate that if I were to kill someone tonight, Butch would be the first victim.
