Dirty Biker (An MC Motorcycle Romance) (The Maxwell Family)

by Alycia Taylor

  “Well I know that you need to have someone to talk to about her,” Dad was saying, “But I think you’re right. I’m not sure Ian was the best choice. One person grieving in a relationship is bad; two is a recipe for disaster. If you need to talk to me about anything…”

  I forced a smile. He was trying so hard. I just wasn’t sure what I needed right now. Ian seemed to be the only thing that worked. “I know, Dad. I appreciate it, thank you,” I yawned and said, “I think I’m going to go to bed.”

  “Okay honey. Please let me know if you need anything. I know that I can’t fix this, but it breaks my heart to watch you go through this.”

  I stood up and kissed him on the top of his head. “I will, Daddy. Thank you.”

  I left him sitting worried on the couch and when I got to my room I thought once again how messed up things were. He worries about me because I lost my best friend and I worry about him, worrying about me. Ian and I had been worried about each other, but now I think I put my faith in the wrong person there…I don’t know why life has to be so damned complicated.

  I changed into my night clothes and went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth and washed my face. Sometimes, going through the motions of normalcy helped. I looked at my face in the mirror and realized that tonight wasn’t one of those sometimes. The stress was still very clearly showing on my face.

  Before I got into bed I looked at my phone. Ian hadn’t texted me or tried to call. I was a little bit surprised about that at first. Maybe I flattered myself, but I thought he would at least text. As I lay down and thought about our conversation and the things I found out tonight I realized that it was probably a sign that I had done the right thing. He doesn’t have any more to add to what I’d heard because I was right. He was a cheater, then and now. His friends all seemed either complacent about it all, or amused. I shut off the lamp and tried to go to sleep but my mind just wouldn’t shut off. It was hours later before my mind finally became too exhausted to continue batting around all of the thoughts that were wandering around in there. I slipped into a dreamless sleep. It was like the sleep of the dead.

  I woke up the next morning when the sun pushed its way through the blinds in my room. They were closed, but the sun was insistent and found any tiny little crack that it could to slip in and assault my eyes. It reminded me of the day I woke up in my dorm room…the day I found out that Emma was dead. Suddenly that wave of grief that always stalked me crashed over my head like a tsunami. My chest physically hurt and before I even knew that I was crying again, the tears were already flowing freely down my cheeks. God, I miss her. She’s the one that I would talk to about things like what happened with Ian. She would either agree with me or she’d set me straight…she was always honest with her advice and opinions. Sometimes I took it and sometimes I didn’t, but we always respected each other. We always loved each other. We always were there for each other.

  I lay there in my bed and sobbed like a baby, soaking my pillow and remembering all of the times when I had a broken heart, all I had to do in order to feel a little better was call Emma. She would talk me through it and restore my self-confidence and having me laughing before it was all over. What was I going to do without her for the rest of my life? I didn’t have other friends like her. The rest of them were just superficial friends. They’re “hang-out” friends. Not Emma. She was the closest thing that I ever had to a sister. I loved her so much and she loved me back. I realized that at least being with Ian had distracted me. I’d been able to carry on with my daily routine because I wasn’t completely focused on losing Emma. Instead I felt like we were keeping her alive in a way by sharing our memories of her. I didn’t even have that now and I had no idea how to carry on alone.

  I turned into the pillow and closed my eyes. I just wanted to sleep. Sleep would let me forget and make the time pass. I wanted the time to pass quickly so maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much. People always say that it gets easier with time. Well, bring on the time because this shit hurts so badly.

  Chapter Two

  Ian

  I was pissed when I dropped Alexa off and I was pissed when I was finally able to go to sleep. I hoped that sleep would help, but I woke up as angry as I’d gone to bed. When my so-called “friends” started running their mouths, I was embarrassed at first for Alexa to find out what a delinquent I’d been in high school, but she totally overreacted. I had never expected her to get all spun out over it like that. I never even asked her what kind of stupid shit she did in high school. Everyone does stupid shit in high school. I’m positive that she’s not completely innocent. Nobody’s so innocent that they can judge someone else on what mistakes they’ve made in the past. I lost a lot because of the shitty choices I made. I didn’t get my high school diploma and I didn’t get my scholarship. I lost the respect of a lot of people who had put their faith in me. Yes, I made mistakes. I made a truckload of them. But I paid for them and she had no right getting all up on her moral high horse and calling me a cheater. What the fuck is that? I didn’t text her last night and I wasn’t going to today. That was it for me. I’m done. I don’t need to be with someone who is so negative and judgmental. Maybe she’s just immature, I don’t know. The bottom line is that I’d spent the past five years of my life trying to overcome the self-esteem issues I had because of the things I’d done and gain back some of the things I lost. My own family accepted that I’d changed. The whole family. They all stood by me. They knew I was just being a stupid kid and that didn’t make me a bad person. I wasn’t going to waste time with someone who wasn’t even there still thought they knew what it was like.

  I got up and showered and after I dressed, I went to the gym and did my workout. When I was finished with that, I called my trainer to see if he had anyone around that I could spar with. I needed to get free of some of this frustration.

  “Hey Dean, it’s Ian.”

  “Hey kid! What’s up?”

  “I need to spar today. Is anyone around there that might be up for it?”

  “Vic is here.”

  “Shit! He’s the only one?” Vic is a moose and I can’t stand him.

  Dean laughed. “Yeah, take it or leave it. I could spar with you, I guess.”

  “No thanks, I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Dean laughed again. “So, should I tell Vic to wait around?”

  “Yeah, I’ll head over there now.”

  Vic and I looked ridiculous together, besides the fact that I couldn’t stand him. I really hated sparring with him. He was six foot nine. Seriously, I know I’m stereotyping, but wouldn’t basketball have made more sense?

  “How’s things been little man?” This was Vic’s regular greeting.

  “I’m six-one, fucker.”

  “Compared to me, that makes you a little man. Don’t even get me started on what I saw in the showers last time we sparred.”

  “Are you trying to piss me off enough to kick your ass?”

  “Come on little man, I’m just playing.”

  “Let’s do this,” I said. We clapped gloves and started circling each other. Vic threw out a wide hook and I dodged it and came back with an upper cut that landed on his chin. It would have knocked a smaller man on his ass, but Vic just shook his head like a wet dog and continued on. I threw out a left hook but he dodged it and came back at me with a hook of his own that caught me on the side of the head. I saw stars and it caused me to take a couple of steps back to regain my balance. I found myself up against the ropes of the training ring we use to spar in at Dean’s. Vic kept coming at me, throwing punches, connecting with my chest and my oblique enough to knock the wind out of me. I put my hand up to stop him and the son of a bitch stepped back and said, “What happened little man, not as big as you thought you were?”

  I know it was a cheap shot. I’m the one who had stopped it. In my defense, he just had to keep running his damned mouth. I threw a hard right and landed it squared in his gut. I heard him suck in air and then he doubled over. He was trying to say
something and I didn’t need to hear it in order to know it started with “mother” and ended with “fucker.” As soon as I did it, I felt like shit.

  “Man Vic, I’m sorry,” I said, crouching down next to him. The big son-of-a-bitch wrapped me up in his massive arms and knocked me back to the mat. He had me pinned and I couldn’t breathe. Dean was trying to talk to him, but I’d unleashed the animal and it didn’t want to go back into its cage. I don’t know exactly how long it took Dean to convince him to let me go, but I was getting lightheaded and on the verge of passing out before he did. Served me right for being an asshole, I guess.

  “What the hell? Are you two trying to kill each other right here in my fucking garage?”

  “Sorry,” I grunted.

  “Little bastard sucker-punched me!” Vic said.

  “He said he was sorry,” Dean tried.

  “I don’t give a shit if he’s sorry or not. Asshole sucker punches me, he’s going down.”

  “All right then, you took him down. You crush him any longer, you’re gonna kill him. It’s over, Vic.”

  Vic squinted his tiny little green eyes at me and said, “Don’t fuck with me again, kid.” I thought about fucking with him, but I guess I was smarter than that. I just nodded and took in another lungful of air.

  Chapter Three

  Ian

  I made it out of the ring alive, but not before Dean gave me a twenty-minute lecture on how fighting wasn’t about getting mad. It was about staying in control. If I wanted to act like an animal, he said, I should be fighting in the street. He actually told me if I couldn’t control myself then I may as well join a gang. I laughed at that, but that only netted me an extra five-minute lecture on respect. Before I left, I conceded he was right about it all and that I was just having a bad day. I saw the shift in his eyes when he suddenly remembered Emma. I hated that shit. I’d rather have him beat the shit out of me like Vic, than pity me. Dean didn’t say anything about that though, which made me grateful. He just clapped the side of my face with his hand…as a show of support, I guess.

  I hibernated in the apartment the rest of that day. I played video games and watched television and slept way too much. Sleep was an escape. I didn’t have to think about Alexa or Emma or feel anything like the emotions that tore through me every hour of the day when I was awake. I woke up at six in the morning the next day and realized that talking about Emma to Alexa must have been keeping these feelings at bay. It felt like there was something sitting on my chest and as each hour went by it got harder to breathe instead of easier. Finally, feeling like I couldn’t stand it any longer, I drove over to see my mom and dad. Maybe it would help just to talk about her for a while with people who loved her as much as I did.

  As soon as I walked in the front door I knew I had made a mistake. That pall that hung over the house since Emma died was still there. I stop by nearly every day and I keep hoping things will change and I’ll walk in and find my own parents here. I found my mom in the kitchen. She was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in her hand, staring at a spot on the wall.

  “Hi Mom.”

  “Ian!” She jumped up to hug me and spilled the coffee all over the table. “Shit!” I realized then that Mom was not having a good day. She rarely ever cussed.

  “It’s okay, Mom. Here, I’ll get a towel.” I went to grab a towel and when I got back, she was still standing in the same spot, staring at the coffee as it dripped down off the table. “Mom?”

  “Oh you got a towel, thank you. I can’t believe how clumsy I am lately.”

  “It’s okay, Mom. It’s really not a big deal.” I started mopping up the coffee on the table and she grabbed some paper towels and got down on her knees on the floor. She wiped up the spots the coffee had reached but she stayed down there like that, looking down at the floor for way too long. “You need help up old lady?” I asked her. Before Emma died, she and I used to joke about her turning forty-five and how I was going to put her in a home soon. It was funny then, because she always seemed so young to me. Looking at her now, it was like Emma’s death had taken decades off her life. I sadly realized it wasn’t funny any longer. She finally pushed herself up and said, “Thank you. Have you eaten?”

  “No, you want me to run and get us something?” I usually brought them something but I’d been so damned distracted today. “Is Dad at work?”

  “No, he’s here somewhere. He’s probably out in the shop in the backyard. That’s where I keep finding him.”

  “He didn’t go to work? Is he okay?” I knew when Dad didn’t go to work it meant he was having one of his bad days.

  She shrugged. “He won’t talk to me about how he’s feeling. I think he’s getting a little tired of me talking to him so he spends all of his time out there, avoiding me.”

  “I’m sure he’s not avoiding you Mom. He probably just needs to grieve his own way.”

  She nodded and said, “I’m going to fix you something to eat.”

  “I don’t mind grabbing something and bringing it back…”

  “Nonsense! I have groceries; I can cook for my son. What do you want?”

  “Whatever you have is fine,” I told her. I wasn’t really even hungry, but she seemed to need something to do. “If you insist on cooking, I’ll go out back and see Dad until it’s ready…unless you need any help?”

  “No, you go on,” she said kissing me on the cheek. “Maybe you can snap him out of his funk.”

  I doubted it. I could barely manage my own. I made my way out to the backyard and the little shop my dad built there. He liked to make things out of wood so he’d built the shop when I was in high school. For a few years there I think he was too wrapped up in my crap to find time to work in it. When I finally got my shit together though and he had more time and less stress, he started making some pretty cool stuff. He’d made a welcome sign for the front of the house and some bird feeders that he put in the trees out front. He had built a bookshelf for Emma’s room and I had an end table at my place that he’d made for me.

  I could hear the circular saw running when I got close. I looked in the small window to make sure he wasn’t near the door with it before I went in. What I saw nearly made me turn around and leave and keep going. That weight was back on my chest and crushing down even heavier now. He had a wooden sign he’d made for my sister. He showed it to me a few weeks before she died. It was for her dorm room and he’d put her name on it and burned flowers into it. He was planning on giving it to her when she came home for winter break. Now he was cutting it up into little pieces. It looked like he was trying to make mulch out of it as he fed it through the saw over and over again. The worst part was that he was sobbing as he did it. In twenty-two years, until my sister died I‘d never seen him cry. I still wasn’t used to it. I stood there, battling with myself. Did he need me to go in there, or did he want to be left alone? I didn’t have to wonder too long before there was a big crash in the kitchen. I had to go check on Mom. I went running into the house and I found my mother sitting in the floor, surrounded by spaghetti noodles and an upside down pot. There was water all over the floor around her.

  “Mom! Are you okay? What happened?” I knelt down to feel the water with my hand and make sure it wasn’t hot. It wasn’t, thank God. She was sobbing again. “Mom?”

  She finally looked up at me. Her eyes were so swollen it looked like she could barely see out of them. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t do anything right anymore.”

  “Oh Mom,” I sat all the way down in the water on the floor next to her and put my arms around her. We sat there for a really long time while she cried and I decided that no matter how much time passed they were never going to be the same. I felt like I’d lost my sister and my parents.

  I spent a few more hours there. I got Mom cleaned up and tucked her into her bed. Then I cleaned up the kitchen and checked on Dad again. He wasn’t crying any longer, but I still didn’t go in. Now he was burning Emma’s name into a new piece of wood. I had no ide
a what for and I wasn’t going to ask. I went back inside and got out some more spaghetti noodles. I cooked them and made some sauce with what I could find in the pantry. I looked in on Mom. She was asleep. I went out to finally talk to Dad and I found him with his head down on his workbench, asleep as well. I doubted either of them had been getting much sleep at night. I left him alone again and just left a note for them on the chalkboard in the kitchen, letting them know that dinner was ready. I locked the front door on my way out, but I realized that the pain locked in there with them was probably worse than anything that could walk in the door.

  I picked up my own dinner on the way home and when I got there, I locked myself in the apartment with my own grief. I ate about two bites but nothing tasted good, so I threw it all away. I found a mindless comedy on HBO and lay down on the couch to watch it. About half an hour into the movie my text message alert went off. I nearly kicked myself in the ass for hoping it was Alexa when I reached for it. It wasn’t. It was Kristie. Surprise.

  She must have been in “sane” mode because the text said, “I’m sorry for bothering you. I just want to make sure you’re doing okay. I feel so bad about Emma and can’t stop thinking about how hard it must be on you.”

  I guess her sanity brought out the insanity in me because I texted her back: “Thanks, Kristie. I miss her so bad.”

  “I know baby,” she texted back. “You shouldn’t be alone. You should let me come over and just hold you.”

  As good as that sounded at the moment, I wasn’t quite that insane yet. I tried to avoid answering by saying, “How are you doing?”

  “I’m good. I got a new personal trainer though. I was having nothing but problems with Jose. I gained five pounds last week.” I read that and laughed out loud. Poor Jose, she blamed him for everything.

  “So who are you going to now?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why I was feeding into this…any of it. I just desperately didn’t want to be alone right now.