by Max Henry
“Right.” He nods, his tone indicating he’s thinking this problem over. “Give me five, yeah?”
“Sure.” I internally roll my eyes. Not like I’m in a rush to go anywhere.
Digits joins the other guys, accepting a drink from the man behind the bar. I tuck my legs up and look around the room, taking in more of the details than I did previously. For what I presume is the MC’s clubhouse, there really is next to nothing to do with motorcycles on display. Apart from the massive mural of the club’s insignia that I spotted on the way in, there’s nothing in plain view. Sure, maybe the leather furniture hints at something, but no Harley pictures? No prints of half-naked women? No signs about loyalty, respect, honor and all that?
Weird.
A shiver ripples my spine, and I shake it off, twisting in the seat to get more comfortable. No wonder, then. Standing in the doorway, small tin box in his hand, is their president—Hooch. And he’s watching me like a goddamn hawk.
I frown, hopefully transmitting my unspoken question: “What?”
His chin lifts and he glances down to scoop a small amount of the box’s contents onto his hand. Great. No wonder the guy is permanently pissed off: he’s a fucking coke-head. Figures. Not like an outfit like this makes their money legitimately, and where there’s trouble, drugs usually follow.
He snorts the powder, and then pockets the box, eyes still on me. I glance away, hoping it might dissuade him from watching me, but nope, when I look back he’s still assessing every inch of me.
I’ve never felt so exposed, even when naked.
The unwarranted invasion of privacy irks at me, and the longer he stares, the more my body becomes aware of his every move, and therefore the angrier I get. I’ve lived in fear, watched my every step in the past, and that’s not a situation I’ll tolerate again—no matter how brief.
If this fucker wants to dance, then let’s tango. No point beating around the bush and faking pleasantries when we’re only going to know each other for all of the next ten or so minutes before I leave and we never lay eyes on one another again.
I get out of the seat, and cross over to where he stands with his shoulder leaned against the doorframe again. I catch Digits watching me in my periphery, but continue until I’m toe to toe with the big bear of a man.
“Is there something you’d like to say to me?”
“What gave you that impression?” His pupils dilate, and he squints a little.
“You’re staring at me with the kind of ferocity I’d expect from someone who’s hoping I’ll burst into flames if they scowl hard enough.”
A low chuckle rumbles through his chest, although he never opens his mouth to let it out. “Simply trying to work out your game, fairy.”
I know I’m petite with finer features, but his referring to me as a fairy kind of pisses me off. It infers I’m light and delicate, weak. I’m anything but.
“No game here, buddy. I don’t expect anything from anyone other than what they want to freely give.”
He lifts both eyebrows, his mouth pulling down at the corners. “Okay.”
“Problem?” Digits slides in beside me, his hand resting on the small of my back.
I shake it off. “No problem. Just thanking your president here for his hospitality.”
“Oh, okay.” He moves his gaze between Hooch and myself, and then turns his body slightly to face me only. “I talked to one of the guys here who knows the lady who runs the grocer a few miles up from us. He said he can have a word to her about getting you a few hours a week if you want to stick around a while.”
Ugh. Catch-22. Wait and possibly get cash, or leave like I’ve been asked to and struggle to eat again. Damn it.
I look pointedly at Hooch. “If that’s okay with you, of course?”
“Make yourself useful, and I won’t have a problem with it.” He eyes Digits, passing some message I can’t quite decipher.
My thoughts flit to what Beth said about making yourself indispensible, and predicting what it is these guys want before they have to ask. I glance over at the men currently downing their drinks at a rate of knots and an idea forms.
“Would your men be hungry? I can whip something up?”
“We have a cook already,” Hooch states, his gaze challenging.
Bastard. “Suppose you have someone to do the washing, too?”
He nods. Digits sighs.
“Bookwork?” I’m pretty good at organizing things when I have to.
“Does it look like we need a receptionist?” Hooch scathes.
I sigh, rolling my eyes back in my head. “You decide then—how can I repay your courtesy?” I narrow my gaze on the brute, resisting the urge to place my hands on my hips.
“The grounds haven’t been taken care of in a while.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. “So show me the way and I’ll get to work.”
“The garden is out there.” Hooch thumbs over his shoulder to the front doors. I catch the hint of a suppressed smirk.
“Jesus, boss. Steady on.” Digits guides me toward the entrance with a hand on my shoulder. “Come on, I’ll show you where the tools are. You can get started tomorrow.”
I nod and step aside to let him lead, catching the smug look on Hooch’s face as he looks over his shoulder to eye us leaving.
If he thinks he can break me for some light entertainment, then the asshole has another thing coming. These goddamn grounds are going to be golf course quality by the time I’m finished.
And he’s going to be begging me to stay.
NINE
Hooch
To say I’m curious would be an understatement. I don’t doubt the woman when she says she has no agenda. Her apparent situation means she should be looking for any and every opportunity to rip us off, but there’s something bubbling under the surface, a pride, that tells me she wouldn’t have it in her to ruin her character like that.
Looking after the grounds is a shitty job; the prospects usually do it. Yeah, I’m testing her, but fuck it, can’t a man have a bit of fun anymore?
Digits storms back inside after showing the fairy where to find everything, his face a fucking storm.
“Was that necessary?”
“You questioning my decision makin’, brother?”
His eyes narrow, his jaw working side-to-side. He knows better than to query my leadership, no matter how trivial the subject.
“You got a thing for her?” I jerk my chin towards the front.
“Nope, but I also can’t stand people who fuck with others just ‘cause they can.”
I grumble my acknowledgement of his assessment and nod, eyes narrowed. “You think that’s what I’m doing here?”
“Aren’t you?” His feet shuffle as though he can’t decide if he should take me on or get the fuck away before he says something stupid.
“Not at all.” I shake out a cigarette and then offer him one.
He shakes his head. “What’s the end game then?”
“That’s for me to know, and you to find out.” Fuck me, I sound like the late Carlos motherfucking Redmond. Drug business must be getting to me.
Digits storms off to take his leave with the rest of the crew still hanging about the bar. I bring the cigarette to my lips, flame poised midway when I freeze. Heather eyeballs me as she follows Digits through to the parlor.
“How long were you hangin’ about listenin’ in on shit?”
She hesitates at the doorway, clicking her fake nails. “Long enough.”
I stride over to the scrawny bitch, cornering her against the wall of the entrance. “You fuckin’ with that boy’s head was cute at first,” I say, gesturing in Digits’ general direction with the cigarette between my fingers, “but the rest of us brothers are tired of your fuckin’ games, whore. You’re here for general use, so you better start sharing what you have around a bit more or I’ll find someone to replace you who can.”
Her blackened eyes narrow as she stares me down. “That so?” Bitch has balls
.
“Yeah, honey-pie. That’s so.”
I allow her to slip out from around me and make her beeline to Digits’ side. Telling a woman she’s not worth anything more than what her body can provide isn’t something I’ll ever be comfortable with, but sometimes you’ve got to play hardball to make the stubborn ones understand. The soft touch has never worked with Heather, and I’m damn serious when I mean I’ll replace her.
Girl just doesn’t realize she won’t stay breathing if I do. No such thing as watertight NDAs when it comes to jaded women. Only way you can ensure their silence is with a carefully placed bullet between the eyes and about six foot of solid turf between them and the world outside our walls.
The cigarette crackles as I succeed on my second attempt to light it. My phone vibrates in my pocket; I don’t need to pull it out to know who it is. Asshole has his own pattern assigned to him so I don’t get caught checking it in the wrong company.
Donovan Jessup: state coordinator for the DEA task force assigned to the fallout after Carlos’ “disappearance”. He’s the fucker who holds my future in the palm of his hand—although ultimately it doesn’t have a goddamn thing to do with drugs.
How’s that for irony? If I’m to be taken down, it’ll be by a fed who’s assigned to investigate drugs, for a crime that has almost no relation to them whatsoever.
Asshole.
I step out front, relieved to find there isn’t another soul in sight except for the fairy across the yard fussing around with the old tools in the shed. Probably should buy some without splintered handles. It’s a bit of fun when the prospects spend several days picking wood out of their hands, but she’s a bit different—she doesn’t need the same grilling.
I watch her as she rustles around the workbench that stretches the longest wall of the shed. My cigarette burns out while she stacks empty plant pots and hangs the hand tools on their assigned hooks. The shed has some sort of order to it, but fucked if the prospects ever manage to do more than throw the tools in the door and hope for the best. As long as they can lock it, they don’t care what’s inside.
I light another smoke, conscious if I don’t I’m either going to knock back another bump or head indoors to get a bottle of whiskey. My habits are killing me—I know it. I’m not blind to the individual effects of drugs or alcohol on a body. And I’m certainly not naïve to the fact doing both at the same time is mainlining me straight to hell.
Still—it’s what gets me through the days. Without it, I would have ended this rocky ride months ago. What’s the point of living when there’s nothing to look forward to? Something I ask myself every day.
The fairy lives up to her name, flitting lightly about the space as she dumps empty fertilizer bags out the door, effectively starting a trash pile. I watch her work, impressed to hell that she’s taken the task on without so much as a complaint. She’s got guts, that’s clear. A pretty young thing like her travelling alone? She can’t have family, because I know if I had a knockout daughter like that I’d have her locked up so perverted fuckers like me didn’t sit across a dusty yard from her, hoping her shorts rode up a little further to give a glimpse of what’s between those tanned legs.
Dirty bastard.
No doubt about it—I need to get laid. Only problem is, last time I fucked my issues out with one of the girls who hangs around here, I ended up locking myself in the bathroom afterward so she didn’t see me having a full on meltdown.
Unleashing the kind of sensations, the emotions that come with a release such as sex only builds a pathway for the ones I’ve kept at bay in my head: loneliness, regret, hopelessness. I can’t reach the pinnacle with one without experiencing the fallout of the other.
I stub the second cigarette out and rise to my feet, pretty certain a shot or two wouldn’t hurt me all that bad. Sure could use it—no doubts there.
The fairy glances up from her work as I take a step backward toward the doors, and for a brief moment my feet hesitate. She’s the complete opposite of me: living out her days alone and seemingly enjoying it.
I could walk over to her and demand she tells me how to do it, how to survive the rest of my days without the people I want the most there to share them with me anymore. But then again, I don’t really want to be that friendly with her.
And truth be told, I don’t think she wants me to be either.
TEN
Dagne
Digits’ connection for work via the club doesn’t come through. Apparently the woman who owns the grocer doesn’t mind helping out club members and families, but as for outsiders? She’s too wary to take on a stranger.
How backward is that? As though I’m more of a risk to her livelihood than this lot. Ugh.
I look around the dining area at the others while I chew on my granola. An old guy sits to the right at one of the four circular tables relishing his toast as though it were his last meal, while directly across from me is Heather and one of the prospects I’ve learnt to be dubbed Timmy-boy.
Figures—he looks all of twelve.
The young guy blabbers on, something about the work he’s put in on his bike, yet Heather pays no mind. She’s busying engaging in a stare down with me over his shoulder.
Groundhog day—that’s what this is. I’ve been here eight nights and nine days, since Hooch gave me employment as a glorified gardener. And every damn day it pans out the same: get up, eat, confront Heather somewhere along the way, lose myself outdoors, come in to eat and get accosted again, return outdoors, and then hit the hay before I can get verbally assaulted a third time.
“You don’t fit in here.”
“You couldn’t handle the men here, anyway.”
“You one of those basic bitches?” as she tugs/flicks/fingers my hair.
And my favorite, “Being pretty only gets you so far in this world.”
Pity the bitch is so average, then—maybe she would have made it further than a biker club’s cum-bucket. Yep, that’s exactly what I’ve heard to her referred as. I mentally slap myself for falling to their level with insults and rise from my chair, collecting my empty bowl.
Heather excuses herself and cuts me off at the door that leads to the hallway. The kitchen is directly across from where we eat, the dining room appearing to have been the original semi-outdoor laundry. The concrete floor has been polished, though, and walls have been put up with large windows that look out over the back yard, letting the sun pour in first thing in the morning.
It’d be a beautiful, calming space if it wasn’t for the wildlife.
“Can I help you with something?” I ask.
“When the fuck are you leaving?” she asks exasperated, as though tired by it all.
Not the only one. “When I’m good and ready.” As much as I feel out of place in this living hell, I’m almost tempted to stick around a bit longer just to stir her up some more.
“The longer you’re here, the more you know about us. And the more you know … well …” She smirks. “You do know what the GFOD on their cut means, right?”
“No, and I don’t really care.”
She tracks Timmy-boy with a seductive smile as he excuses himself to pass between us. Satisfied he’s out of earshot, she leans in for the kill. “It means, God Forgives, Outlaws Don’t. You snitch, say anything at all about what you saw here, and—” She makes a dramatic show out of shooting me in the head with a finger pistol.
I roll my eyes and try to walk away, yet she shifts to block the kitchen door.
“Stay away from my man and I won’t have to let Hooch know that I saw you talking to the sheriff.”
Her threat of a bald-faced lie doesn’t worry me in the slightest. Anybody worth half a grain of salt would ask around and find it’s bullshit considering I haven’t stepped foot off the property since I got here.
“I thought staying away was what I was doing by being outside,” I say. “Considering I’ve heard you belong to all of the men, that’s probably the only way I can keep away from the whole lot a
t once, right?”
Her lips set in a firm line, and before I can cross my body with my free hand to defend myself, her palm leaves a sting in its wake.
I rub my cheek, eyes narrowed on her. “Truth hurts, bitch.”
I leave her in the hall as I stride into the kitchen and rinse my bowl and spoon before loading them into the dishwasher. I may have acted tough, but the way the crockery rattles as I slot my bowl into position gives away just how badly my hands shake from the rush of adrenalin.
I hate conflict—loathe it. Yet for some reason, whenever I’m provoked, fighting back comes naturally. I guess with years of suppressed comebacks for my father, a lifetime of things I never said, now have an outlet.
The hall’s empty by the time I’ve finished cleaning up, which is a nice respite give my hands still shake a little. I head upstairs, change in to my gardening clothes: a faded tank Digits gave me, and my cut offs, and then head outdoors to my safe haven.
The work is simple, and to be honest, I’ve quite enjoyed it. A bird—don’t ask me what kind; it was brown—stopped by while I was pulling weeds yesterday. The little guy sat on the branch of a bush not far from where I worked and cocked his head side to side as I struggled with the stubborn roots. I sat back on my haunches and stared at the creature, wondering how it would feel to be so free before it hit me.
I am free. And yet I’ve never felt so shackled in my life. Shackled to the fight for survival. There’s no freedom when you walk off the grid, there’s just the vast echoing silence of your mortality as it stares you down challenging you to test it.
Everybody needs to eat. Everybody relishes the feel of cleanliness. And everyone aches for human interaction.
There’s no real joy in solitude. Yet there’s also no joy in the struggle to fit in. There’s just a limbo in between where you try a little of each in intervals and hope for the best.
Sun streaks in the gaps in the walls of the shed as I gather my tools for the day. There’s not much left to do. The gardens are clear of weeds, the grass trimmed thanks to the ancient lawnmower I was convinced I’d lose a limb to, and the paths are swept and cleared of moss. All that remains is to tidy the driveway.
