by Zahra Girard
No one’s going to stop me from taking what’s mine.
Chapter Thirteen
Alice
Days pass with no word from Thrash. It worries me, and several times I think about calling him, but I don’t know where things exactly stand between us. He’s a biker, he’s involved in all sorts of illegal business, and the last thing I want to do is chase him away by seeming clingy — even if I would like to see him, since being around him and his self-assured confidence makes me feel like I actually have better than just a slim chance of finally coming out ahead.
With him, my dreams feel a bit more real.
But I don’t call, I don’t text, I act like business as usual — I keep my head down at work, I bartend, and I watch over my mom on those times when Eleanor isn’t available.
I pretend like I’m not floundering without him, like I’m not fighting for every breath.
All in all, things go like normal.
And it hurts.
Today’s another one of those days where I have the day off. Where I have to distract myself from the fact that each day I’m not making money, I’m a bit closer to drowning.
Thankfully, I’ve got an extra distraction today: mom’s treatment.
“And you’re sure you’re going to be able to watch your mom today?” Eleanor’s voice stops me in the kitchen as I’m finishing my coffee and getting ready to head out.
“I’m sure. I’ve already cleared having today off with my boss. I’m going to meet Lexie for breakfast and then I’m coming right back here to take mom in for treatment. I’ll only be gone an hour.”
Eleanor nods. “Ok. It’s important you be back by then. My husband and I have to go down to Los Angeles. I have some training down there I can’t miss — it’s a seminar I have to take so that I can renew my nurse’s license.”
“Don’t worry, Eleanor, I’ll be back in time. I promise.”
She nods and I head out to meet Lexie for breakfast at a small cafe – The Breakfast Nook — that’s located a few blocks off Main Street. It’s a hole-in-the-wall joint run by a husband and wife couple and built into the ground floor of their house. It’s decorated like a home’s dining room and meals from the kitchen are actually slid out to the servers on a little nook that comes out of the kitchen area.
It’s cute. The wife runs the kitchen and the husband serves the meals and runs the register.
“Al, sit down, let me get you a coffee. Breakfast is on me,” Lexie says, wrapping me in a comforting hug the second I step into The Breakfast Nook. “How are you?”
The place is almost full, but Lexie has a table in a semi-quiet cozy corner for us.
“Surviving,” I say.
“Well, that’s better than not-surviving, I suppose.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so bleak. I’m doing fine. Mom’s getting better every we go to the clinic, even if it’s happening really slowly, and I haven’t collapsed into financial ruin, yet, so there’s that, too.”
“Way to sound positive,” Lexie says, dryly.
“That’s me,” I say. “How are you?”
“Worried about my friend. Even though she’s such a constant ray of sunshine, I’m worried that all the trouble she’s going through might make her a bit gloomy,” she says. “Which is why, out of love for you, I found you a date.”
“I’m not looking, Lex.”
“You don’t have to, I did the looking for you. You need someone to take you out and help you forget about everything for a little while. And I don’t even mean that in a sexual way, though, if you got lucky it wouldn’t hurt.”
“Lex, I told you, I’m not looking.”
“You haven’t even heard about him, yet. His name is Brian and he’s a firefighter. He lives over in Flat Rock, so it’s a bit of a drive, but his butt looks so good in jeans that it’s worth it.”
“For the third time: I’m not looking.”
“Why?” She says, then her eyes narrow and she reads me like I’ve got the answer tattooed all over my face. “Did you already find someone?”
“Maybe. Kind of. No. Sort of.”
“Well, which is it? And who is he?”
“His name is ‘Thrash’, and-”
“Hold it. Al, ‘Thrash’ is a verb, not a name.”
“It’s his road name,” I say, slowly.
“Oh, so he’s a biker? You meet him at The Smiling Skull?”
“No. He’s with the Rebel Riders.”
“Did I hear you right?” She says, with a look of consternation on her face. “You know, sometimes I forget you didn’t grow up here. If you had, you’d know the bad blood that’s between those two clubs. There was a time where things in Crescent Falls were fucking scary.”
“There’s a truce now, though, right?”
“Yes. But these are men we’re talking about, Al. Any excuse they can get to fight and fuck each other over, they’re going to take it. Do you really want that on your conscience?”
“I think you overestimate how much I care about the Reaper’s Sons or the Rebel Riders.”
“You care about your family, though, right? Your mom and Eleanor? And yourself, too, I think it’s safe to assume.”
“Yeah, what’s your point?”
“If you start shit, don’t think it’s going to stay contained. If it hits the fan, it’ll get messy. What are you doing getting involved with a biker, anyway?” She says. But there’s a smile on her face that tells me she wants all the details.
“He’s not as much of a colossal asshole as some of them. He’s an ass sometimes, but it’s a little more tolerable. Plus, I think in some moments of weakness, he might even feel the slightest bit of respect for me.”
“Don’t say that. If you say it out loud, you’ll be cursing it.” She eats a bite of stuffed French toast. “There’s got to be more to it. Give me the details. Have you gone for a ride yet?”
“On his Harley? Yeah.”
“No. Have you gone for a ride, yet?” She says, loud enough to draw looks from other diners.
“You mean, have we had sex? Yeah.”
“Details. Now. Spare nothing.”
I laugh. She looks so interested I can’t help but play it up. “Is there a positive form of PTSD? Like, where you have flashbacks to something really good? If so, I think I have that. I still shiver from time to time, and it was a few days ago that we were down by the ocean… And the things he can do with his tongue… My legs are still shaking, Lexie.”
“Alright, stop, I’ve heard enough.”
“It was good.”
“I told you, stop.”
“I haven’t heard from him lately, though.”
“Don’t worry about it too much. You know how they are.”
“No, I don’t. Do I look like I have some kind of insight into biker society? Like I’m the Dian Fossey of MC Culture? ‘Bikers in the Mist’ starring Alice Riley.”
“Listen, they don’t do commitment well until they make you an old lady. If what you have with Thrash becomes a thing, just listen to him when he’s explaining how things work with the club,” she says, pausing to stare down at her empty plate of French toast as if she wishes there were more there. “And be careful. You might not know what happened between those two clubs, but I remember. It was terrifying. I don’t want to lose my friend to that.”
“I’ll be fine, Lexie.”
My phone beeps angrily. Eleanor’s giving me my fifteen-minute warning. I dab my face with a napkin and move to stand up.
“Hey, I have to go. It’s treatment day for my mom.”
“Tell her I say ‘hi’. I’ll be in the movies, gawking at Ryan Gosling and thinking about your biker boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Sure, keep saying that. Doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
“I’m leaving,” I say. Then, “I love you.”
“I love you, too. Stay safe.”
I get home and Eleanor’s already ready and waiting for me at the front door.
We hurry together to get my mom in my car and settled before Eleanor heads off to start her trip to Los Angeles.
I’m at the clinic for maybe fifteen minutes before my phone rings again. It’s a number I don’t recognize.
“Hello?”
“It’s Hammer.”
He sounds angry.
“Oh. Hey.”
“You need to come in. Now.”
“I can’t,” I say, flinching as the words leave my mouth. Saying ‘no’ to Hammer is not a good idea, but I can’t leave my mom alone here.
“I don’t want to hear that word from you, Ms. Alice.”
“I have to be here for my mom.”
“Get a fucking sitter,” he snaps. “You need to do another run down to Rosarito.”
“Isn’t there someone else that can do it just for today? I really, really can’t leave my mom.”
There’s silence for a moment.
“You have twenty minutes to get here. If you’re late, your mother’s cancer will be the least of your problems.”
The phone clicks as he hangs up.
I’m stuck. Lexie’s probably got her phone off. Eleanor is most definitely unavailable. And there’s no way in hell I want to even find out what kind of consequences Hammer is capable of dishing out.
There’s only one person I can call. And what I’m going to ask him goes way beyond ‘just business.’
This is personal.
But I need him.
Time to take our relationship to the next level.
Chapter Fourteen
Thrash
My phone beeps from its spot on the table next to Micro and I practically leap to get to it. Guard detail on the grow operation isn’t so much an assignment as it is imprisonment in gardening limbo.
The lodging I share with Leon ‘Micro’ Pace — the more technically-inclined member of our club and the one in charge of the nuts-and-bolts establishment of the grow operation — is small. And that’s being generous. It’s a single-room cabin, set on the outer edge of the cleared-out old lumber yard, located in the ass-end of nowhere. It’s next to a large greenhouse installation for the hydroponic part of our grow operation – Micro’s pet project — and the cabin’s windows provide a clear view of a wide swath of the outdoor, more ‘natural’, part of our marijuana operation.
Once Micro’s finished installing all the hydroponics, we’ll be growing the extremely high THC product indoors, along with testing out new hybrid varieties, while the more basic retail stuff will be grown outside.
In the few days that I’ve been living here with my shaggy brown-haired companion, I’ve learned more about marijuana than I care to know.
The only excitement’s come through one instance, where I thought I heard the sound of motorcycles cut the quiet midnight air and I went off chasing ghosts down forest roads.
All this boredom, all this time with my thoughts, has made me more determined than ever that I need to pull this heist against the Reaper’s Sons. I need to take them down. I need to protect my club from the danger they refuse to recognize.
And the payoff won’t be bad, either.
So when my phone beeps to tell me that I’ve got a voice mail, I leap at the chance to get up and check it.
It’s Alice.
Her voice has a worried tone to it that immediately sets my adrenaline going.
She needs me.
It feels odd that she’s made the first contact ever since that day on the beach. I’ve been meaning to call her, but every time I pick up the phone, I feel at a total loss for words. How do I tell her how I feel? She’s unlike all the others, in the best way, and I don’t want to do a damn thing to mess up what we have between us.
With how tenuous things are between the Rebel Riders and the Reaper’s Sons, it’s seemed like the best idea to stay silent until I figure out exactly how I feel about her.
But now, she needs me.
All bets are off.
“I’m leaving,” I say to Micro.
He hardly moves. “You can’t. Hawk’s orders.”
“Hawk can suck my cock. I’m stepping out, I’ll be back later, and I’m not going to start any shit with any Reaper’s Sons. So chill the fuck out and go play with your fucking plants.”
Micro just shrugs.
“You really shouldn’t. But I don’t give a shit, I’m not the one who Hawk will blame.”
I glare at Micro. He’s an ok guy most of the time, if a bit different in the head, and I don’t blame him for following lockstep to Hawk’s orders. Micro’s newer to his patch and his cut than I am, he doesn’t have the experience to know when to step out of line.
I send a text to Alice. On my way.
She answers almost instantly. Thank you.
I’m glad to the cabin in my dust as I tear away from our grow op on my Harley. Day after day of nothing but guard duty, dealing with Micro, and literally watching plants grow is enough to wear on anyone’s nerves.
I get to the clinic and step in like I belong, as if a cut-wearing biker is absolutely the most normal thing to see in the lobby of an old-folks clinic.
Janet smiles at me from her hidden-in-the-corner desk.
“Hey Thrash.”
Inwardly, I wince. Even greeting her is a chore when I’m sober. She can suck like nobody’s business when it’s time to get down and dirty, but, during the daytime, she just fucking sucks.
“Hey Janet,” I say, forcing a smile. “Is there a Margaret Riley here?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I’m here to spend some time with her,” I say, slowly.
“You visit the elderly, now? Like, volunteering? That is so sweet.”
“Something like that. Is she here?”
“Yes, in the back. Third door on the left down the hall. She’s wearing the red sweater.”
“Thanks, Janet.”
“Call me sometime.”
“Sometime. Sure.”
I step down the hallway and into the room where there are several patients seated in reclining chairs receiving chemotherapy or other IV treatments. I spot Alice’s mom right away — she looks almost exactly like her daughter, only with a few decades on her.
They say you can tell how your woman is going to look when she’s older by taking a look at her mom. If that adage holds true, I’m going to be a lucky man. Even with the toll all the medical treatments have taken on her, there’s still something charming about Margaret Riley that tells me that Alice is going to be attractive for a long time.
“Hello. Are you Margaret? I’m a friend of Alice’s. She sent me to keep you company while you’re getting your treatment.”
“My word you are a big one.”
“A bit, yeah.”
“And so tall. What’s your name, dear?”
I ponder that for a second and realize it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for me to introduce myself using my road name.
“Thanks. My name’s Jake. Jake Tanner. Though my friends call me ‘Thrash’. So, can I join you, Mrs. Riley? What are we watching?”
“My daughter put some TV shows on my phone. Right now, we are watching Special Agent Leo Gibson solve crimes for the Navy.”
I sit down beside her and put one of the earbuds in my ear. “Ok. Well, let’s get into it, shall we?”
Margaret leans into me a bit and looks up at me with a sly smile. “It’s for warmth, dear. The treatments make me so cold. I hope you don’t mind an old woman looking for some comfort.”
I know exactly what she’s doing. And I don’t mind.
I slip my arm around her. “Happy to help, ma’am.”
“You can call me Daisy, if you like.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Daisy? That’s an entirely different name.”
She shakes her head slightly and a smile dances in her eyes. “No, dear. The French version of ‘Margaret’ is ‘Marguerite’, which means ‘Daisy’. All the boys called me Daisy when I was younger. Oh, the trouble we got into.”
I nod. “Ok, Daisy, well, le
t’s get comfortable and watch the show, alright?”
Daisy and I go quiet for a while, sharing a set of earbuds and watching the brave and gruff Special Agent Gibson lead his team to solve crimes. It’s not such a bad show, and it’s easy to lose myself in it for a while in the otherwise quiet treatment room, where the only other sounds are the rhythmic beeping of medical machines.
“So, how do you know my daughter?” She says after a while.
“We’re working together on some stuff.”
“You’re not seeing anyone?”
“I might be. It’s new.”
“I see. Well, don’t break her heart, dear,” Daisy says, giving me a look pointed enough to draw blood. “I might be old, but I can fight like hell where my daughter’s concerned.”
Our show watching comes to an end when a different nurse, with a name tag that says ‘Paige’, a friendly smile on her face, and fiery red hair, comes in and begins tinkering with the IV machine that Daisy’s hooked to.
“It’s time, Margaret. All done,” she says.
“Thank you, dear,” Daisy says.
“How are you feeling?” Paige says.
“Awful, as usual.”
“It’ll take a little while before that feeling starts to fade. Now, where is your daughter? She’s taking you home, right?” Paige says.
I check my phone. Based on the message she left me, it’s still going to be a couple hours before Alice will get back, and that’s if she doesn’t run into any serious traffic, which is unlikely.
I clear my throat. “I’ll be taking care of that.”
Paige gives me a sweeping look. “You’re certainly not taking her home on a motorcycle.”
A small, but wicked, smile lights up Daisy’s face.
“It’s ok, Paige. I am sure I’ll be just fine riding in his lap.”
That draws a sideways look from me. If this is how Daisy is when she’s sick and tired, she could give any biker I know a run for their money when she’s healthy.
“You really shouldn’t, Margaret,” Paige says. “It’s not safe.”
“Oh, dear, will you please just shut up and let me have this one thing?”
Paige gives me an exasperated look and all I can do is shrug.
