Loving Me, Trusting You

by C. M. Stunich

  “Because you don't need to. Because I've already seen what you can do. When you're tired or stressed or weary or you need help, it's okay to ask, Mireya. I would. It's not weakness to rely on someone you trust.”

  “But I don't trust you,” I tell him, and his face falls. “Why should I, when you have no issue lying to me?” I stare him down hard.

  “Mireya, some things are better left in the dark, but if you really want to know … ” Gaine sighs and shakes his head, tightening his fingers ever so slightly on my shoulders. “I'll tell you. After you get your meeting, let's go to the room and we can talk about it.” He releases me and moves away, towards the elevator.

  I motion for Christy to follow after and make sure she's settled in with Amy before I move into the adjoining suite and close the door. Everyone's already waiting for me.

  I look at them all, study their faces and try to memorize them. This is going to rip me to pieces, but I have to do it. This is the only way. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. When I open them, my resolve is solid. There's no going back.

  “I know we have a lot of crap to deal with right now, a lot of changes to get used to, but none of that can be done until I deal with the mess I made. If I hadn't killed Tray, none of this would be happening.” I forge on before anyone can jump in and feed me bullshit about how that's not true, about how all of this would've come to pass some way or another. That's not true at all, and I know it. I don't want to hear anymore lies. If I'd felt deep down and listened to myself, left Tray alive, unconscious on the floor of that room, we'd be sitting here talking about stupid shit like Vice Presidents and Road Captains. As of now, all the focus is on this, on me. “I wanted Tray to suffer, and frankly, I'm glad that he's dead. It's a relief knowing that he's not out in the world anymore, but … ” I trail off and turn away, putting my hands on my hips and moving towards the windows. Outside, in the distance, I can see the blue glimmer of the ocean. It brings a smile to my lips that I quickly wipe away. I can't deal with that right now. At this moment in time, I have one thing on my mind and nothing else is going to happen until I can figure it out. “I wish I didn't have his blood on my hands.” I wait for someone to say something in response to that, but this time, they're all quiet. “I thought I wanted to kill the others, but I just … don't. I don't want to be like them, to sink to their level. I've dealt with enough crap in my life. I just want to move on.” I turn back to face the group, to look at Kimmi's wrinkled brow and pursed lips, Austin's deep frown, and Beck's sad smile. I do my best to avoid Gaine's eyes. “But I can't, not with them chasing us from one end of the country to the other. I don't want a hundred other gangs pulled into the mix, and I sure as shit don't want Triple M to be made an example of. So. I'm going to get rid of them for you.”

  “Okay,” Kimmi begins, sounding confused. “So, what, you're going to hunt them down and shoot them? Is that what this is about? I hate to say it, sister, but that was my plan all along. As soon as we can, we take them out, and we don't look back. That's just the way it's going to have to be.” I let her finish, smiling as I listen to her words.

  “Not exactly. Actually, I'm going to leave for a little while.”

  Gaine stands up when he hears this, but I don't give him a chance to protest. I'm sure he'll try later, but it doesn't matter. I can make my own decisions, and I've made this one. This is the only way I can feel satisfied with the outcome.

  “I'm going to go leave, and I'm going to make sure they know it. When I'm gone, they'll back off. I know they will. They might chase me, but I'm not worried about it.”

  “This is bullshit,” Gaine says, moving forward. His black shirt is stretched taut across his body, highlighting his rapid breaths and his quivering muscles. He's pissed. And panicked.

  “This is my choice, Gaine,” I tell him and watch as it dawns on him that there is nothing he can do to stop me. If I want to leave, I have every right to do so. What I don't expect is the way my chest opens up inside, how I feel like I'm falling and I can't stop the descent.

  “Why?” he asks and his voice is so quiet, it's hard to hear. Nobody else speaks. I think they can sense that there's something going on between Gaine and me that even I don't fully get yet. I look at his face, at the fear there, and I don't expect to have such a strong emotional reaction to it. I move a step back.

  “This is the only way I can clear my conscious and protect Triple M.” I stare Gaine down. “It's the only thing I've ever cared for in my life that's still around. I'm not letting this crap turn into some underground biker brawl bullshit. If I leave, they'll stop chasing us. They'll stop recruiting other MCs. They want to avenge their brother, and I'm their target. Kick me out,” I tell Austin, looking into his brown eyes. “Or at least pretend you did. That's going to be your story. It'll make me an outlaw, and it'll protect you all from a whole load of bullshit. I don't want to kill anyone else, and I don't want anyone here to do it for me. You don't need blood on your hands, and I am not fucking letting any of you get yours on theirs. Got it?”

  “Mireya,” Austin begins, but Gaine is coming closer to me, moving forward like he's being drawn.

  “Don't do this,” he tells me, glancing back at Kimmi and Beck. “We're a family here. We've been one for years. You can't just walk out.” I feel a sting behind my eyes, but I'm not taking it back. I won't. This makes sense to me. I want to sacrifice myself to make things better. I don't want to argue about women and motorcycles. We already have a tough enough time as it is. If I leave, this quiets down and fades into the background again, hopefully until the day it disappears forever. Prejudice garbage doesn't sit right with me, and it's not okay. I can stop it by simply climbing on my piece of shit bike and heading into the sunset.

  “I figure I'll hit up a few shops and make some repairs to my ride. After that, I'm just going to drive until I figure out what to do next. Maybe, in time, they'll get over it, and I can come back. Until then, I'm going to do what I do best.”

  “Mireya,” Gaine growls, and I call tell he's pissed, but that he's fighting the emotion back. “This is ridiculous. How could you do this to us?”

  “You mean to you?” I ask him, feeling a burn in my eyes that I don't like, but that I've been getting awfully familiar with lately. “How can I do this to you? I'm sorry Gaine, but I'm never going to be the kind of woman that falls into your arms and swoons.”

  “That's not what I want from you,” he tells me, voice breaking a bit, dropping that Southern sultry charm he's picked up over the years. “I just want you to be happy, and I know if you leave, you won't be. This self-sacrifice isn't worth it.” I laugh, but the sound is just bitter, not at all pleasant.

  “Sacrifice?” I ask him, feeling the other three stares in the room like they're lasers, driving into my spine. Gaine's look, though, is hot enough to melt. He looks like he wants to move across this room and grab me, hold me hostage and never let me go. But he wouldn't. He'd never do a thing like that, and that's what makes this so hard. “Hardly. I'll get to ride when I want and where I want.” I look over at Austin. “And as fast as I want. No rules, no responsibilities. It'll be like a vacation.”

  “And if you get caught?” Gaine asks, and my stomach churns. I haven't said anything to them yet, but I'm taking somebody's gun with me. I don't know whose, but it doesn't matter. As long as it's got bullets in it, I'm good. If I have to, I'll kill them. If it comes down to a truly desperate situation, I'll kill myself. I'll never let my body be tampered with again. It's mine, and only I control what I do with it.

  “Can I make a suggestion?” a voice asks from behind me. I turn to find Amy and Christy slinking into the room. They're both staring at me with different eyes, eyes from another world, orbs of blue that calculate risks and rewards in a completely different language than the one I use.

  “I suppose,” I say, turning to her and feeling Gaine's presence like a bullet behind me, hot and ready to pierce. I'm going to have to avoid him until I leave. I was hoping we could … hang out o
ne last time. Amy's book gave me all sorts of ideas, and the only person I could bring up in my head that I wanted to try them with was him. But it's not going to happen. I didn't realize how much I would care. Making the decision in my head was one thing, seeing it hit him like a brick was quite another altogether. Madre mia, I hope I'm making the right choice.

  Amy smiles at me, and I feel a little surge of disappointment. Maybe I could've made peace with her and her stupid friend, too. I feel like I could, like I'm at a point in my life where it would be okay. I glance back at Kimmi, too. It would've been nice to have some female friends in my life. I spend all this time defending women and trying to protect their rights, but I don't ever actually hang out with any. It's kind of pathetic.

  “This is a big decision, and I see where you're coming from.” She moves forward and reaches out a hand to touch mine. I look at it, but I don't smile back. I can't. If I move my face at all, I'll cry, and I've done way too fucking much of that lately. I haven't sobbed in years, and I'm paying for it. All of the past pain is coming back, breaking through my dam and drowning me. “Some decisions we make; others are made for us. You might think this is a little of both, but it's not. This is all you. You have choices.”

  I stare at her for a moment before a scowl hits my face like a train, knocking me back with a surge of anger.

  “Bullshit!” I scream at her, feeling my facade of calm slip away. It's always been pretend. I don't know how to act, how to behave, how to feel things. All I know how to do is get angry. That's it. I'm a fucked up eighteen year old girl inside, one with scars so deep they cut straight through to her heart. I can't pretend anymore. I'm done pretending. “I don't have any choice! I can't see the people I love get hurt, and I can't charge myself with anymore dirty deeds. I am fucking broke!” I hit my fist into the wall and spin before Gaine can come up behind me. “I made my decision and I'm sticking to it. I'll say my goodbyes tonight, and I'm leaving in the morning. If you don't like it, too damn bad. This is the way things have to be.”

  I turn and grab the handle to my room, moving through it as Amy calls out behind me.

  “Sleep on it,” she asks, and I pause. “Sleep on it and let's talk about it again tomorrow.” Gaine moves forward and I step back, turning to throw him a wet glare, the muscles in my face taut from forcing the tears to stay back. He moves into the room but doesn't touch me, just goes into the bathroom and slams the door. “We can go to the beach and look at the ocean. That always changes things. Do that and then decide,” she whispers as I start to close the door. I don't want to hear it anymore. I'm not going to change my mind. They need to accept that. The sooner they do, the easier this will be. “And Mireya,” she says before I get a chance to block her out completely. I look at Amy's heart shaped face, at her moist eyes, and I see that she doesn't want me to go. I don't know why. I've been nothing but rude to her. “About Gaine, you said you didn't want to love him. Think about that. How can you not want to do something you've never done?” And then she winks at me and the door slams shut in her face.

  I feel like a train's hit me, like I'm never going to be able to stand up again. I'm paralyzed, frozen in place, blinded with fear and frustration. I can't make Mireya stay, that's true. But there is no way in hell I can let her go. Do I follow after her? Do I ride my bike like a damn stalker and chase her around the country? If I did that, she'd never let me live it down. My chance at her heart would go from slim to impossible.

  “Are you going to tell me or not?” she asks a few hours after her initial confession. I'm lying on the bed with my hands clasped behind my head, eyes closed. I've been here most of the day. Everyone else has come and gone, enjoying the new bounty of money that's been sprung onto the group. I don't know how much it is, but Austin's been pretty generous with it. Still, Mireya and I end up sharing a room when we don't have to. She could've walked out and gotten another at any moment, and she hasn't. I try to see that as positive.

  “Tell you what?” I ask, and I don't like how angry my voice sounds. That's not what I want her to see. I can't control her with rage and a bad temper. She has to stay because she wants to. Anything else just won't work.

  I open my eyes and look at her face. It's softer than usual. Her saucy lips are tilted down in the corners and her sharp eyes are open wide, looking at me like she's never seen me before. Or maybe more like she's never going to see me again. I absorb her into my system, staring at the fall of dark hair around her shoulders, the straight ebony blackness that ends in a gentle wave. Her body is just perfect, like a goddess descended from Mt. Olympus. It's round in all the right places, full, ripe. I doubt Mireya would ever be interested in having kids, but she's got the right body for it, solid hips and the softest fucking breasts.

  I don't try to hide my erection from her.

  “What you lied to me about.” I laugh, but I don't mean to. It just comes out, nervous and shaky. As soon as I tell her about that girl, I'm sealing her ticket out of here. I may as well pack her bags now. I sigh and run my hands down my face as I sit up. I've got to come up with a solution, an atypical one, something that she'll never suspect because I'm pretty damn positive that she already has a retort ready for every protest in the book.

  “Mireya, take my bike.” I look up at her as she wrinkles her nose. The softness is getting erased already, and I've only just seen it. I lock the image in my mind and promise I won't forget it for the rest of my life. “It's better than that piece of shit you just bought. If you're going to go, I'd feel a lot better if you took my baby with you.” I try to smile, but it doesn't come across right.

  “You want to give me your Tiger?” she asks incredulously. “You've tweaked the shit out of that thing. It's got your fingerprints all over it.” I stare straight at her, hoping that somehow she'll see in my eyes that I don't want her to go, that I can't bear to watch her drive away.

  “Only because you helped me with it. You know I don't know shit about playing with machinery. I can ride it hard, but I don't know what the hell you're always going on about. Multi-plate clutches and steel trellis frames.” Mireya's face stops wrinkling up and she almost smiles. Almost. I rise to my feet and move towards her, trying to keep that easiness we've had in our friendship for so long. I don't know why it's such a jump for her to accept that we're a couple. We've kind of been one, on and off, for awhile now. We've slept in each other's arms, shared secrets, fucked like friggin' rabbits. All I want is to be able to tell her I love her, to hear her say it back. That's it. Simple. I keep going, forcing the mood to stay light. “Single piston sliding caliber brakes?” I ask as a question, touching my fingers to her bare upper arm. She's got on a black tank and dirty jeans, no makeup. I don't often get to see her like this. She's gorgeous, jaw-dropping, flawless. I like her even better this way than I do when she's got her smoky eyes and red lips, though I wouldn't complain about that either. It's just, Mireya's perfect to me the way she is. “I don't know shit about shit. I just like to ride the damn things.”

  “Don't play dumb with me,” she says, and I notice she sucks in a breath when our flesh makes contact. Her chest tightens and the rise and fall of her breasts increases as her breathing speeds up. “I know you know your shit, and I can't take your bike. It's a part of you.” She looks up at me and shakes her head. Black hair brushes my arm and sends my body into a messy, sweating frenzy. “Stop saying such stupid fucking crap and tell me what you need to tell me.

  “Mireya,” I say, and I can't hold it back anymore. I wrap my arms around her, sliding my fingers beneath the fabric of her shirt. I don't miss the way she arches her back and pushes her chest into mine, squishing her breasts against me. “My bike is a part of me, but you're an even more important part. I'd hate to see it go, but I don't know if I can stand to watch you leave.” I raise one hand to her hair, curl my fingers into it. She's looking at me with her slanted eyes opened wide, her lips frozen in a gentle part. I've only seen her like this once, the night I told her I loved her, the night she spilled all h
er secrets to me. I screwed things up then, but I'm not going to screw them up now.

  In an instant, I know what I have to do.

  Tonight, I'm going to leave, and I'm going to find Bested by Crows myself. That's it. That's all there is to it. There might be some scuffles after this, but that's going to be it. If I take out their Pres and his closest buddies, the group will either fall apart or be forced to back off. They don't have a big club. Just a few strategic hits should be enough. What's an army without its generals anyhow? And I figure if they back off, the other MCs might pull back a bit, too. As long as we stay away from them, we'll be alright, and this disease won't get spread all across the continent, taking innocent girls down with it. I try not to think of the woman with the tattoo. I have no way to check on her, so it's pointless to even entertain thoughts about her.

  “Don't say stupid things like that, Gaine.” Her words come out soft, barely audible. “You're trying to distract me with disgusting, fluffy shit. You know that's not my scene.”

  “I know, but I can't help myself. When you find the woman you love, you just start to spout fairytale crap in times like these.” I lean forward and breathe against Mireya's mouth, pressing my lips against her lower one, savoring her in that moment, wishing I could hold her there forever.

  “Times like what?” she asks as I kiss her, get her mouth wet with mine and enjoy the feel of her nipples hardening against me. She's not wearing a bra, but her breasts are still raised and full, held up by the strong muscles in her chest. I move one of my hands up slowly, caressing her tentatively, seeing how far she'll let me go. She told me to back off, but now she's leaving. Surely she has time for one last hurrah?

  “Times where you find out that you're losing the one person that means the most to you, where you're powerless to stop it, where you know you'd do anything, give anything to keep them with you.” Mireya's eyes flutter closed and her hands find the waistband of my jeans, sliding in and brushing against my skin.