by Amy Isan
After a few breathtaking moments, she pulls out a stamp pad and presses it firmly against the paper Logan handed her. She sends it back to him through her porthole and guides us along our way.
“Welcome to Mexico,” she says dryly. A green light appears in front of us, and we’re allowed passage.
He toes his bike back into gear and we pass through the gate into Mexico. I’ve never even been outside of Arizona before, let alone the United States. It doesn’t feel as different as I thought it would.
More desert greets us on the other side. As we pull further away from the border, Logan ramps up his speed until I’m sure we’re breaking all sorts of laws. I glance over his shoulder and take a peek at his speedometer: well over 100 mph. I instinctively grip him tighter and try to hold on, cowering behind his back to keep the wind from beating at my face. It’s gotten chilly as the sun has set. Not like earlier when it was refreshing in the face of 100 degree heat. A dry heat.
I rest my forehead against his back and arch my back out. I can feel his gentle breathing, despite the terrific speed. He’s calm. Collected. Not scared. I can’t believe it.
I wish I could climb over onto his lap and fuck him this instant. That I could take him while we ride along the Mexican desert. The idea alone sends tingles up my spine and around my thighs. I bite my lip and try to control myself. This isn’t the time to be dreaming up toe-curling ideas. I dig my hips closer to him and grind a little, hoping he might get the message. He smirks and glances over his shoulder at me, before running his hand up my thigh and between my legs for a brief taste.
Dusk has set in complete with a dim glow on the horizon. I can only imagine that’s where we are headed. It’s difficult to talk over the roar of the engine and the wind, and I’m content to just hang on for the ride. I fought off exhaustion long ago and my second wind has already caught up with me. Even so, I can’t wait to crawl into bed.
If there are beds. I don’t know what to expect. I can expect one thing though. I run my hands over Logan’s body and massage his shoulders for a brief moment. I’ll get to sleep in the same bed as my outlaw for once.
I won’t let him avoid it by trying to cling to the floor again. Enough chivalry. I’m done with it. I need him to dominate me.
. . .
Another ten minutes of riding and we’re engulfed in the city of Nogales. The city’s lights made it look a lot larger than it is, but it’s nothing but a campsite compared to Phoenix. Logan revs his engine and slows as we enter the main city street. He cocks his head and we enter an alleyway off the main road, and I brace myself for the worst.
Now that the wind has died down and his motorcycle is quieter, I feel like I can talk to him. “What’s this place?”
“A place I know that’ll take us in. I had to hide out here once a couple of years ago.”
“Really?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer. He guides his motorcycle up behind a dumpster hidden in a back corner of the alley. He drops his feet down and walks it into the makeshift parking space, before throttling it one last time and shutting it off. A metal door with graffiti on it is the only entryway on the building. The other building is nothing but brickwork all the way back to the street. Logan hops off his motorcycle, heaving a leg over and being careful to not knock me out of my seat. He goes to the back of the bike and unhooks the saddlebags, hoisting them onto his shoulders again.
I follow him and an ache swells in my legs. I didn’t realize how rough sitting on the back of a bike was. I hobble up to Logan as he approaches the graffitied door, and he waits for me to catch up. I straighten myself out after he gives me a funny look, and try to look presentable. I don’t know who we’re meeting, or really, anything anymore. I’m just strung along like a fish on a hook. I watch him as he knocks on the door. He’s got his hook dug in me real deep.
We wait a few moments and he knocks again. A buzzing noise catches my attention from the street and I stare down the alleyway, just as the door opens for us. Logan grabs my hand and drags me inside with him, and I almost stumble backwards over the threshold.
The hallway just inside the door is plain if not a bit worn and old. The wallpaper is torn on one wall, and looks like it’s from the seventies anyway. A stairway extends up on one wall, and two wings are split from each side of the door. It’s almost like an entire house inside what looks like a brick commercial property.
A grim looking hispanic man is standing at the foot of some stairs in front of us. Logan looks glad to see him.
“It’s about time, Damian,” he says. Damian’s eyes go from Logan to me, and I freeze up in response. He cracks a smile and extends his hand to shake mine. Logan introduces me: “This is Cassie.”
After making introductions, Logan gets right down to business. “We need to crash here for a while, is that okay?”
“Sure, sure, I’m surprised is all. You know you can call,” Damian says, looking past Logan’s shoulder at the closed door behind us. “How long? It won’t be cheap.”
Logan grins a little and smacks Damian on the shoulder. “Come on, I know you owe me one after the last time. You practically begged me not to leave...”
Damian chuckles and shrugs. He holds up his hands in defeat, “All right, all right, but I really can’t keep you here for that long.”
Logan curses and nods. Damian waves his hand and starts ascending the steps. Each piece of wood creaks and whines under the load, and Logan grabs the saddlebags and throws them onto his shoulders. He follows up behind Damian, and I grasp the railing and make my way up the old staircase.
Damian presents a worn but comfortable room for us. A single large bed is pushed up against a wall and a small window looks out over the street. Cars whiz by and horns honk, but it’s nothing like Phoenix. Almost too silent in comparison. Logan drops our bags on the floor next to the bed and then talks to Damian a bit more. I try to listen, except I’m so exhausted I can’t bear the effort. I slip past them unnoticed and climb onto the bed. Its frame squeaks with every movement and once I reach the pillow, I collapse face-down into it. I can hear them murmuring, but the only thing on my mind is how unbelievably tired I am. I guess I’ve never taken any road trips anywhere, let alone sat on the back of a vibrating bike for so many hours. I exhale deeply and the world fades away from my senses. Within a few moments, I’m dead asleep.
. . .
I wake up early in the morning, which I can only tell because of the blue sunlight creeping in through the open window. It’s humid and the sheets have been pulled down to only cover my legs. Logan’s arm is around my shoulder and his breathing is gentle and constant against the back of my neck. I snuggle closer against his body and he responds by pulling me closer, until his bare chest is touching my back. A shiver runs through me and I giggle a little bit. Even with all this madness surrounding us, I savor the joy he brings me.
He smacks his lips a couple of times and whispers something. I lean a bit and try to look over my shoulder at him. His eyes are still closed shut, and after I shift, he repeats: “Cassie...”
I grind my hips against him and test his resolve. He grumbles and chuckles in my ear, still keeping his eyes closed. He squeezes me against his growing erection and gropes my breasts. I giggle, but am too tired to do anything more.
I stroke his arm a couple of times, until his breathing changes and I know he’s asleep. It’s still dim enough in the room that I don’t have to stay awake, not really. Having Logan wrapped around me makes it an easy choice. After rearranging my pillow, I doze back asleep, sunny thoughts on my mind.
. . .
The lack of cars driving by and horns honking is what finally wakes me up. Yellow light hits my face and tickles my nose, and I distract myself by looking away so I don’t sneeze. Logan is up and wandering around the room when I finally sit up. He immediately looks at me and gives me a grin.
“Morning sleepy-head,” he says.
I shake my head and laugh. “What? Sleepy-head? Who says that?”
He smiles. �
��Get up,” he says. “Let’s go eat.”
I climb out of the bed and dig around in the bags he brought up last night, something light and clean to wear should be good enough. Maybe a dress? He’s so casual, like we’re not literally on the run.
. . .
After getting dressed we descend the stairs and exit into the alleyway again. Logan is carrying the saddlebags, having dropped the duffel off inside our room. Last night, in my exhaustion, I could barely make out anything along the buildings. With the light of day illuminating everything, I can see how run down the city is. No sign marks the door we just left, and an overfilled dumpster lines the left wall. While I’m gawking at everything, I notice Logan settling the saddlebags back onto his motorcycle. The ground is damp and murky, but the alleyway is short enough that it isn’t anything to freak out about.
On the street, cars flash back and forth, but even with more traffic than last night, it isn’t a very impressive sight. The street we’re on seems to barely extend for more than a couple of blocks in each direction, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire area was only made up of a couple dozen blocks.
“Wow,” I say, as he pulls me onto the sidewalk.
I feel his gaze on me and he cocks his head a little when I look at him. “What is it?”
“This place is... tiny.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Good for laying low in. It was the last time I was here.”
I nod and he places a firmer grip on my arm and guides me down the sidewalk. After a few moments, he turns his heel and we walk into a bistro. The place looks just as humble as our hotel, if you could call it that, and has the same kind of charm to it. Old fixtures line the walls and they look like they’re more than for decoration. An old couple greets us in Spanish and I feel my heart sink. I don’t know any Spanish. Before I can freak out, Logan responds in Spanish.
I’m not only bewildered that Logan can speak it, but embarrassed by how little Spanish I’ve picked up despite growing up in Arizona. The old lady that greeted Logan looks at me and asks Logan something in Spanish and he shakes his head. She grins and extends her hand out to me. “Hola, señorita,” she says.
I flush and shake my head weakly. I almost want to vanish through the walls I’m so embarrassed. I mean, I know what she said, but I have no idea how to respond outside of my own hola. Logan talks with her some more while I just try to pick out words I might understand. After a little bit, she scribbles some things on her notepad and goes into the kitchen.
I lean forward and close to Logan. “I didn’t know you knew Spanish.”
A grin. “Why’s that surprising?”
“It just isn’t something I expected.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Cassie,” he says. He looks out the open door to the street as a car glides past and then he looks back at me. “Same for me with you.”
“Maybe we can change that while we’re here,” I say. I inch my foot forward and tap it against his boot, and give him a smile. He smiles back and I just want to kiss him. That stern look he gives me is enough to make my heart melt. I don’t even know why. This can’t be normal, right?
Is this what other people feel like when they’re...? No, I don’t know him well enough to use that word.
After some time passes, with me admiring the interior and Logan most likely admiring me, our food comes out. The old woman holds each plate with an oven mitt. She places the dishes in front of us and slides them forward and says something in Spanish. After she leaves, I stare at my food. It looks delicious. Something like an enchilada but with some eggs on the side. Nothing like I’d ever seen or eaten before.
“What’d she say?”
“She said, basically, ‘enjoy, lovebirds,’” Logan says.
I flush and pick up my fork and start eating. It isn’t like any Mexican food I’ve ever had before, it makes the stuff up in Phoenix seem like cheap trash in comparison. Each bite is steaming with flavor and before I know it my plate is clean. Logan wraps up slightly after me and laughs a little after he swallows his last bite, as his eyes move from my plate to me and widen. “Hungry, huh?”
I nod. He stands up and walks up to the counter and talks with the old lady some more, before handing her a wad of cash. I have no idea how much it is, but even from where I’m sitting I can tell it’s more than generous. Especially since her reaction is one of overwhelming thankfulness. He waves for me to follow and we head back outside through the open door.
“Come here,” Logan says as we head down the sidewalk. People are all over the place now, mingling up and down both sides of the street. I wrap my hands around his arm and follow his lead back to the alleyway where our room is. We stop just outside the graffitied door and he climbs onto his motorcycle and starts it with a howling roar.
“Are we going somewhere?” I ask.
“I’m going to teach you how to shoot,” he says. I look toward the door to Damian’s place. He practically reads my mind as I meet his eyes again. “The guns are in the saddlebags.” I climb on the seat behind him and scoot forward until my legs are embracing him, and he tickles the throttle a couple of times. He walks the bike around and then jets off down the alleyway, kicking up papers and splashing into the small puddles as we depart. I dig my feet into the pegs and hold on tight.
. . .
As we ride through the city streets and pass slow cars on the shoulder, I think about how stunned I was at Logan’s bilingual tongue. He’s right. I don’t know a lot about him, and he doesn’t know a lot about me. Despite that, he saved my life more than once and now we’re stuck together. That has to be a sign, or something, right?
We pass outside the city limits and head out into the Mexican desert, and it’s much of the same like Southern Arizona. Less red crags and more sagebrush, though. The wild life scatter around us as we break off the road and travel down a beaten path, until we reach a long hilly area. Some wood and sheet metal are set up in a haphazard way, and I get the feeling Logan’s been here before.
He stops his hog short and we skid across the dirt ground. He shuts his bike off and kicks the stand down, before reaching down and opening the saddlebags to retrieve the revolver. I stand up and wait, straightening my hair by running my fingers through it. I swallow hard. I’m already embarrassed just to be seeing the stupid thing again. The gun I couldn’t find a safety on. How humiliating.
We’re standing close together, and it’s only then that I notice we’re alone. Nothing but the smooth wind and bright sun overhead to spy on us. He holds the gun out in his palm and shows it to me.
“This is the gun, right?” he says. I nod. “Okay. Do you know how to shoot it?”
I shake my head and lower my gaze down to his belt. “I couldn’t even find the safety... the trigger wouldn’t move when I tried that night. Logan, I know I said I wanted you to teach me, but...”
“But nothing, I said I would. Look,” he says. I meet his eyes and he has a gentle expression. He points down at the gun and points out the different parts of it to me. “This is a double-action revolver, it doesn’t have a safety but I never told you that.” He says as he points at the back of the gun. “Double-action means you don’t have to cock it first by pulling the hammer down, but you have to pull the trigger that much harder.” He clicks the hammer down, then releases it slowly. “This is the chamber, which I’m sure you’ve seen before.” He flips it open and shows me the brass backs on the bullets. Each has a silver circle in the center.
“What’s the silver circle?”
“That’s what the firing pin strikes when you shoot it. It detonates the charge and sends the bullet out of the chamber and into the barrel, then, hopefully, into whoever is fucking with you.”
I scrunch my eyes and notice the small grooves around the silver circle. “Okay...” I’m following well enough, but just thinking about actually using a gun again makes my heart race with anxiety. I couldn’t use it to save Sara from that asshole striking her, and Logan expects me to use it again?
He shuts the chamber and points the gun out to some scattered bottles and cans that lay on a used railroad tie about fifty feet away. With steady pressure and firm control, he fires it and a loud and horrific bang startles me. Almost instantly one of the bottles shatters into pieces with a satisfying crunch.
“Where did you learn to shoot?” I ask him. I sit back down on his motorcycle, my legs hanging off the side facing.
“Surge taught me,” he says, with a hint of self-consciousness. “I actually forgot about that. He brought me out to this same spot.”
“You were here with Surge?”
“Yeah,” he says, lowering the gun and turning to me. “It was a couple of months before Los Devils broke up, but we came down here with the whole gang and made connections with some cartels down here.” As he recounts the experience, his expression turns sour and he frowns heavily. “I’m sure that’s when Surge met the asshole who gimped us on our last drop.”
“Drop?”
He smiles. “It doesn’t matter.” He sighs and walks up to me. I shift on the motorcycle seat and look away from him, glancing at the bottles and cans still standing at the end of the shooting range. I’m surprised they haven’t been knocked over by a gust of wind.
“You should probably just tell me. After all, you got me in this deep.”
“Drugs. A drug deal. That’s when I found out that you were probably in trouble.” I frown and keep my eyes fixed on a distant beer bottle. Its label is torn off and bleached.
“Why? Why get involved in all this shit? It can’t be that much fun, can it?”
He opens his mouth to say something but shuts it again. He scratches his arm, hiding one of his tattoos for a moment, then turns around. “It’s all I know.”
All he knows? Like how he was raised? He gestures for me. “It’s your turn now, come here.”
