by Dark Angel
But anyway, I force myself to focus on life at hand, not on what could've been; I've finally been given the orders I've been craving for a while. Crankshaft has just told me that the Dark Tribe aren’t working for the FBI anymore; with their cover blown, the FBI has said they’re worthless now.
Something I could’ve told the FBI from the get-go, but those idiotic bastards never bothered asking me.
So, my mission is complete. I can start my own Black Fist MC chapter on Long Island; help Crankshaft build up our brotherhood there. I’ve wanted this for a long time—for forever, really. I can finally make a chapter into what I want, and start focusing on the things that matter to me.
So why does my heart hurt like shit?
Becca…
I ignore that thought. I know she won’t come with me; after all, the only reason that it was so easy to convince her to let me take her van that day in the Midtown tunnel was because she hated the commute to Long Island. She isn’t about to go there with me. She hates everything about the place.
But that shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. She’s just someone to fuck and then leave. Sure, she has the other bikers wrapped around her little pinky, fetching her frou-frou drinks with umbrellas in them at the snap of her fingers, for god’s sake, but I’m not one of those guys. I never have been. I’m not meant for that kind of life. I'm not meant to settle down.
Plus, I finally have the life that I’ve been dreaming of for a long time within my grasp. Crankshaft has been waiting to see if we can shake the Dark Tribe, if we can get rid of them and get on with our lives. I had just one mission to complete, and I did. I made it. It is time to take the victory lap that comes with that.
I speed up, tearing around the corners toward the clubhouse. It’s about time to start my new life.
Becca
Harlan comes walking into the clubhouse and at the sight of his confident swagger, my heart trips a little. God, I want him right now. I consider tearing his shirt off with my teeth in front of everyone, and know for a fact that at least a couple of the guys would enjoy the show.
I grin to myself. Maybe something to do later.
But when his eyes meet mine, I can see that something’s wrong. He looks…not pissed, really, but not himself. I’m staring at him, trying to figure out what’s going on, when he jerks his head toward his bedroom.
“Come on,” he says gruffly, and disappears down the hallway.
With a sad sigh, I pull my foot away from Dragon who’d been busy rubbing it into ecstasy, and promise him I’ll be right back. I was getting a foot rub, dammit! I sure hope whatever Harlan wants to talk about is worth giving that up for.
He waits for me to clear the doorway before shutting it behind us.
“I’m leaving,” he says abruptly, and I stare at him, open-mouthed. I open and close my mouth in a great impersonation of a fish, but nothing comes out. “I’m going to Long Island, starting up my own chapter of the Black Fist there. Crankshaft gave me the okay this morning.”
“Okay…” I say, drawing the word out about five seconds longer than it normally is said. I’m staring at him, trying to figure out if there’s any way for me to bring up us without sounding like a whiny, needy bitch, when he says, “You’re not coming with me.”
I collapse down onto the pink silk coverlet on Harlan’s bed and just stare up at him.
“Why?” I ask, my voice raw and hurt.
“Because this is what I do. I don’t settle down, I don’t fuck just one girl; I don’t fall in love. I don’t know what that damn Kindle of yours says that I should be doing, but that isn’t it. Those authors can lie to you all day long, but I won’t. I’ve always told you the truth.”
“But I could come with you,” I say weakly, the knife twisting in my gut and I can’t believe I even said those words, but I can’t help myself. He can’t move without me. I don’t want to be without—
“No, you couldn’t,” he says flatly, and begins throwing his stuff into his bag. “I go alone.”
“Such bullshit. I know you care about me. You just won’t admit it—not even to yourself.”
“Whatever you want to think, sister, you just go right ahead.” He doesn’t even look at me as he continues to throw shit into his bag.
“Fine, then I’m staying here!” I say defiantly, springing to my feet and glaring at him. “You go do whatever the fuck you want to do, but I’m staying here. Some people around here actually like me.” I spit those words out like they’re poison on my tongue, but he doesn’t seem to care or notice.
“You do that,” he says, brushing past me and toward the door. “I’ve got better shit to do.”
The bedroom and then the front door slam shut, and I hear a Harley tear off out of the parking lot and I lie back onto my soft silk coverlet that I’d bought specially for this room and I cry.
Harlan
I’m sitting at the official Black Fist Long Island Motorcycle Club bar, which right now is just this shitty plank of wood across some concrete blocks. But hey, we’ve only been a club for a week. A custom-made bar with a 1974 Harley Davidson carved into the front of it will be arriving next week, and until then…I look down at my forearms. I guess until then I just live with the splinters. Or start wearing long-sleeve shirts.
I take another swig of my whiskey, feeling the burn all the way down. God, that tasted good. Maybe I should just make a date with the whiskey bottle tonight. It’s making me feel better than anything else has in a…
Well, in a week.
I push the whys of that away. I'm not going to dwell on that tonight.
“Hey boss,” one of the new initiates says, slapping me hard on the shoulder, “what do you think about taking me into the ring in the back? I’d like some hand-to-hand combat training.” I stare at him, trying to even remember his name.
I can’t.
With a growl, I turn back to the bar and throw back another shot of whiskey. There’s a part of me that knows I should slow down, but I’m ignoring it for now.
I know I should also be spending time with the initiates, training them, bonding with them, not just sitting around and drinking. Basically, I’m making one fucked up leader at the moment, but I also don’t seem to be able to make myself care. Maybe tomorrow I’ll care.
“C’mon man, don’t you know? He’s got girl problems.” Hammer sneers the word “girl,” and I tense up. I want to come out swinging, beat the motherfucker into the ground, but it just seems like too much work.
I slump further onto my barstool, too beaten to even stand up.
Goddammit, they’re right – I do have girl problems.
More specifically, I have Becca problems. For the last week, I’ve done nothing but moon over her. It’s so pathetic, I want to go out and kick my own ass.
I haven’t mooned over a girl like this since junior high. What was it about Becca that got under my skin so deeply?
Her smile...
Her sense of humor...
Her intelligence...
Not her taste in decorating…
That last one makes me smile. I guess no woman is perfect, and Becca and her obsession with pink, fluffy shit sure keeps her from being perfect.
But does that really matter? In the long run, would it matter if I had a black blanket or a pink one on my bed, as long as Becca is the one who's in that bed with me?
I slosh some more whiskey into my glass, ignoring the ongoing jabs from my brothers, letting them fade into the background. What they think doesn’t matter. I’m the head of this MC; they aren’t. They can give me shit if they want, but no one will question my supremacy.
But I don’t drink the newly-poured tumbler of whiskey. I just swirl it around and around, as if staring into its amber depths will reveal some sort of magical information that I didn’t know before.
Like...
When Becca was escaping into the clubhouse, hiding from the world within our walls, she was choosing to escape and be with me. That’s what she wanted – to b
e with me.
I could come with you…
She’d offered that day. She’d begged me that day. And I was too stubborn and bullheaded and stupid to say yes to her generous offer. Why? Because that’s who I am? What a load of bullshit. Well, Mr. I-Always-Tell-The-Truth, here’s some truth:
I was scared. I was scared of feeling something for her. I was scared to fall in love.
Except, I already had.
I stand up from the bar and wobble around on my legs like a sailor just getting back to dry land, the world swimming in front of my eyes. Goddammit, I’m too drunk to drive myself to the Manhattan clubhouse.
“Come on, Butch, let’s go,” I say, picking him out of the crowd because he owns a truck. He can drive.
Also, I can get coffee on the way from Starbucks or whatever. I needed to be sober for this one.
It’s time to stop feeling sorry for myself.
It’s time to start reaching for what I want.
For who I want.
Becca
I smile at Lisa and Rory, doing my best to hide my broken heart. A week, a fucking week, and still no word from Harlan. No “Hey babe, I’m at the new clubhouse and still alive,” and sure as hell no “Hey babe, I love you and I’m sorry I’m a jackass.”
I take a swig from my Long Island Iced Tea, hating the name, loving the drink. How is it that such a great drink has such an awful name? I used to dislike Long Island—or more specifically, my long-ass commute to get there every day—but now I hate it with a passion. It has taken away the one guy I’ve ever fallen in love with.
I know it isn’t sane to blame geography on my heartache, but I don’t seem to be able to help myself.
At least my two closest friends are here with me. Lisa leans over and gives me a one-armed hug, pulling me tight against her side. “Becca, baby, it’s going to be okay. Things are a little rough right now, sure, but they aren’t always going to be like this.” She squeezes me again and I sit back up, a little surprised by how much I just want to be held by Lisa right now.
Well, let’s be honest—I really want to be held by an entirely much more muscular set of arms, but since his aren’t here...
Speaking of muscles, most of the bikers are gone today to some rally for Vietnam veterans, and that means we have the clubhouse pretty much to ourselves. That means that there’s a definite slowdown on the fruity drinks with umbrellas, but I’ll do my best to survive.
“Are you sure it’s safe to belong to an MC?” Rory asks, looking around the virtually empty clubhouse as if someone’s going to pop out from behind a column and start shooting at us. I try not to roll my eyes. It's not as if the Black Fists get into a shootout every day, like we’re in a Wild, Wild West saloon in the 1800s or something. Since I was first “kidnapped,” the only thing I’ve ever seen is that knife that Harlan used to…encourage Tye to step out onto the balcony buck-ass naked.
Which, I will fully admit, I still think is fucking hilarious. I've wanted to ask an old neighbor (or six) how long it took Tye to decide to climb down the fire escape to get down to the ground level, and if the police had been called on him for “public indecency,” but I always tell myself not to be a jackass.
Some days, it’s hard to restrain myself though.
Lisa chews her lower lip nervously. “I’ve seen a couple of things since Diesel and I got together,” she admits, “but nothing outrageous. I mean, not like a shootout or something. Just guys flashing their guns at each other, but they’ve always calmed down before anyone got shot. But Becca, they are a motorcycle club. You can’t ignore that. I’m pretty sure that the Black Fist is into some illegal shit, and that always brings—”
Men bust through the front door, shooting their guns into the air, screaming for us to get down, just as Lisa whispers, “Trouble.”
Oh, we’re in trouble all right. My drink sloshes in my hand erratically as I try to put it down on the coffee table. It goes sideways, spilling brown liquid everywhere, but I ignore it and drop to hide behind the coffee table, my legs quivering, my stomach a mess. I can’t breathe. I can’t believe this is happening. Who was guarding the place? Aren’t there supposed to be guards? I don’t know much about MCs, but even I’ve heard that. Surely not everyone went to the vet rally!
The bullets stop and a dead silence extends over the room. I swear, no one is even breathing.
“Which one of you is Becca Whiting?” the leader shouts out into that awful silence and Lisa and Rory’s eyes shoot straight at me, panic on all of our faces. I freeze. I don’t know what to do. I can’t just continue to hide here forever, but I’m pretty sure these guys aren’t here to give me a pedicure.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the leader says in a sing-song voice. “I’m from the Dark Tribe club, and I have a present for you.”
The sarcastic part of me, which always comes out whenever I’m in the middle of something truly awful, encourages me to say, “Oh, oh, a new Gucci bag? My old one was getting so gauche,” but I ignore it.
I like being sarcastic. I don’t like being dead.
Sacrifices have to be made sometimes...
The men have fanned out around the room, looking for me. The panic is rising in me and I’m mortally afraid I’m going to throw up right here, right on top of the new rug I had installed last week. I gulp back the bile, breathing in and out slowly. Carefully.
Think, Becca, think! You can get out of this.
Except, I really don't know how. They have guns, and I do not. There are lots of them, and only one of me.
I decide to stay on the floor. Luckily, we are pretty far away from the front door and it’s a big open floor plan with lots of groupings of furniture everywhere. Yeah, they're going to find me, eventually, but I don't have to make it easy on them.
“Our clubhouse got burned to the ground today,” the leader snarls out. “We barely escaped with our lives. It was Harlan who did it, and I’m going to make him pay by killing the woman he loves.”
Oh, did I have news for him. If he's going to kill me as revenge against Harlan, that isn’t going to do him much good. In fact, they could deliver my cold, dead body to Harlan and he’d probably say, “Who’s that?”
As I’m debating how believable it would be for me to tell these hardened killers that, no matter how true it is, they don’t have a whole lot of reason to believe me, a shot rings out, shattering one of the lights on my end of the clubhouse. Everyone freezes.
“You here for my girl?” a voice asks from the darkness.
Harlan
I take advantage of the surprise and blast a hole the size of Texas into Devil, the leader of the Dark Tribe. I can’t help it; I grin with self satisfaction at the lifeless body crumpling to the floor. He was a bastard through and through who’d picked a perfect name for himself. He deserved to die a much more painful death, of course, but life doesn’t always do fair.
His followers take my momentary distraction of self congratulations to run pell-mell through the front door. Since there was no one outside to guard the place, they were going to get away. But, it isn’t like I could’ve taken them all down anyway. Me and Butch against the whole Dark Tribe? Not a chance in hell.
I step out of the shadows, scanning the room for survivors. Surely since I left, the club hadn’t completely fallen into disrepair like this, right? Who leaves a clubhouse standing empty?
Becca’s head pops up over the top of the furniture.
“Harlan!” she gasps. “I thought that was your voice!” She comes tearing around the furniture, even going over the top of the couch at one point, until she finally gets to my side and throws her arms around my waist. “Dedgeuaxally—”
I pull her away from my chest a little bit, as hard as it is for me to put even millimeters between us. She obediently starts again. “Did you actually burn down their clubhouse?” she demands.
“What? No. I mean, I probably would have if I’d known where it was at, but I didn’t, so—” I stop myself. That is not where
I want this conversation going. “Where the fuck is everyone?”
Lisa and Rory have made their way over to me, and lean on furniture, legs shaking so hard, I can see it from over here.
“The guys all went to a Vietnam veteran rally,” Rory says. “I guess they didn’t think the clubhouse needed guarding.”
“Is Crankshaft here?” I demand.
“No, he left yesterday on some mission. I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
Well, that explained a lot. There was no way Crankshaft would’ve been okay with leaving the clubhouse unguarded. Heads were going to roll when the guys came back.
“Hold on, if you didn’t burn down the Dark Tribe’s clubhouse, then why are you here?” Becca asks, pulling away from me completely and staring cautiously up at me. She folds her arms across her chest, shivering, and I can tell that the shock of seeing someone die is starting to really hit her.
Oh, speaking of, we have a dead body to dispose of. My eyes flick over to Devil and then to Butch. I jerk my chin toward the dead leader and the congealing blood around his body. Butch nods and heads toward the body to take care of it.
That worry dealt with, I can finally focus on the one and only reason I had come to Manhattan: Becca.
“I’m here because I love you,” I say. “I've lived this last week without you, and it’s been hell on earth. Becca, I never want to be without you again. Will you move to Long Island with me?” I hear the gasps of the two girls as they listen to my proposal, but I ignore them. All that matters is my cinnamon-haired goddess.
“I would love to,” Becca says, throwing her arms around me. “Fuck Manhattan! Let’s move to Long Island!”
I start laughing and begin swinging her around and around, making her squeal loudly in my ear. I love every sound, but then I hear the best sound of all—a happy sigh.
“I love you too, Harlan,” she whispers into my ear, and I know that there’s no better sound in the world.
