Calming the Riot

by Karen Renee

  “You’ll be there the whole weekend, right? Get some quality time with her.”

  Liar gentled his tone as he said something that pained him to think let alone say. “Not sure four days of sittin’ around watchin’ game show re-runs is anyone’s definition of ‘quality time,’ babe. Plus, Gran is nothing if not headstrong and set in her ways. She’s gonna be more than ready to toss me and Beast out the door.”

  Andrea’s voice was just as gentle when she responded. “Your definition of quality time and her definition might not be the same at this stage of things. Just being there is important, hon, for as long as she will let you be there.”

  “Babe,” he said on a sigh.

  Andrea grabbed his hand, shook her head, and said firmly, “Time spent is time spent, Jim. No matter how boring it might be to you, and even her, it’s still quality time when it’s family spending it together.”

  Liar didn’t like wondering about it, but he couldn’t help the question running through his mind. The worst part was that he couldn’t even fathom an answer for it. What the hell had he done to deserve a woman as good and smart as Andrea?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Andrea

  After a relatively enjoyable breakfast with Neil and Razor, Jim and I came back to my place. I was a little disappointed because I would’ve liked to have taken a longer ride. It would have made me feel better about us riding to Urban Bean, but the clouds in the sky were darkening, and it was clear we were in for some sort of rain.

  I turned from locking the door only to find Liar in my space. “What’re we doin’ today, babe?”

  Having no answer to that, I shrugged.

  An almost sinister smile crossed his face. “You got oil?”

  I couldn’t help but narrow my eyes at him. “Are you still trying to make fun of me for the whole WD40 slash canola oil incident?”

  He chuckled. “No. It’s overcast outside, and probably gonna rain half the day. Thought we’d get you oiled up and then get it on together.”

  My lips thinned, and I realized he was not kidding earlier. If he had ideas about having sex while oiled up, he definitely had spent some time watching professionals on the world wide web. I shook my head a little. “I use that for work, you can’t use it on me, or if you do, you’ll only need a squirt the size of a quarter at best.”

  His grin intensified. “It’s a tax write off for you babe.”

  Before I could tell him, I didn’t care it was a so-called tax write off, there was a knock on my door. Liar stiffened, but I moved around him to check the peephole. His hand was suddenly on my belly because his arm was wrapped around me from behind, and he pulled me back to him.

  I tilted my head to the side and looked up at him. “You’re overreacting, man. It’s Janie out there. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll answer the door.”

  His arm dropped, and he lifted his chin at me. I opened the door to Janie with a smile on my face, and she smiled back at me but still pushed her way inside ranting. “Thank God it’s Sunday. That might be wrong of me to say, but it’s quickly becoming my favorite day of the week. Trent has a tee-time right after church, so we drove separate. Which means, I ditched church. I’m sure that buys me an ass-chewing from him later, but—”

  She cut off her own rant with a loud inhale, and then whispered, “Wow.”

  Her eyes cut to me, and I said, “Janie, I’d like you to meet Liar. Liar, this is my bestie, Janie.”

  She shook his hand and mumbled some niceties, but when she looked back to me, she said in a low, but not low enough, voice, “You watch Outlander?”

  I shook my head but grinned.

  “Read the books?” she asked.

  When I shook my head again, she tilted her head while giving me her biggest eyes. “He’s Jamie, but with shortish hair.”

  I hadn’t lied when I indicated I had not seen or read Outlander, but I didn’t live under a rock either. I had seen ads for the show, so I knew the hero was an incredibly built, sexy as all hell redhead. That meant I couldn’t help but giggle like a loon at my best friend saying all of that to me right in front of Liar.

  “You’re crazy,” I told her. “Now, do you want something to drink?”

  Janie held up a bag in her left hand I hadn’t noticed. “I brought you a green tea matcha. If I’d known you had someone here, I’d have brought something for Liar, too. Oh, hell. Should I go? I shouldn’t be imposing like this, but I couldn’t help but take advantage of my possible entire day away from Trent.”

  Luckily, the drink she brought me was iced, so I could put it in the fridge until I was ready for more caffeine. I took it from her, and said, “You’re never imposing, girl. Liar and I just got back from Urban Bean and were debating what we were going to do for the remainder of the day.”

  “Well, in that case, I should definitely go. Leave you two—”

  Liar’s phone rang, cutting her off. He answered, and it was clear he was trying to keep his voice low. Whatever the caller said irritated him, and he failed at keeping his voice down. “I asked you about that last Monday.” Pause. “Yeah, yeah. I wouldn’t call it disrespect, Major, but Rage needs to get his shit together.” Pause. “Weed and pussy is no excuse, but I’ll be there. Probably twenty-five minutes.”

  He turned to us and gave me an apologetic look. In an effort to help him out, I spoke before him. “You gotta go. It’s okay. Come back when you can, if you feel like it.”

  The smile he gave me was tight. He turned to Janie. “Nice to me you, Janie, but I gotta get to work. Not entirely my business, but nobody deserves any shit for cuttin’ out of church. So, this Trent guy gives you an ass-chewing, me and my brothers would be happy to educate him for you.”

  Janie beamed at him, and I had to bite my tongue. She was my girl and all, but I didn’t like seeing anyone looking at Liar that way. I wasn’t normally jealous, but seeing him through her eyes, I realized I wasn’t the only one who appreciated the beauty of Liar. Janie wouldn’t act on it, but God knew there were plenty of other women out there who would.

  Liar put his arm on my hip. “Walk me out, Andi.”

  With a small smile at Janie, which I hoped said, I’ll be right back, I followed Liar out the door. He stopped just down the breezeway, turned and pulled me flush to his body.

  “Know you think everything’s cool just because of your paper that says that fucker’s to stay away from you, but I’m serious. Don’t open the door to anyone.”

  Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. I opened my eyes and smiled while I spoke. “I do have a peephole, dear. Something you don’t know about me because we haven’t played twenty-questions or whatever in order to get to know one another, but I don’t open my door to anyone I don’t know. It was that way before I encountered Double G, and it hasn’t changed.”

  I watched as Liar’s stubbled chin moved to the side. Then he dipped it down so he could give me a stern look. “Tell me you have not given that asshole a fuckin’ nickname, babe.”

  Who knew my biker-lover would have something in common with my best friend? Janie didn’t like me dubbing Gilbert Grant ‘the double G’ either. Her reasons were purely in deference to The Sugarhill Gang’s song “Rapper’s Delight,” but nevertheless she was also damned insistent I not nickname him.

  “Well,” I started, but stopped when Liar rested his forehead on mine.

  “Baby. No man, and I mean, no man lies in wait for a woman the way he did. And no man storms into her place of business and tries to take something from her. Nobody decent has to have a fuckin’ chair swung at their head in order to get them to back the fuck off another human being. He is not someone you nickname. That R.O. is fine and great legally speaking, but it’s a piece of paper. Stay vigilant. For me, if nothing else, all right.”

  I pouted, but my heart wasn’t in it. “Okay, Jim,” I muttered.

  “Now, put those lush-ass lips to good use and kiss me.”

  God, he was bossy as hell. Not that I’d let him or probably anyone else know
it, but deep down, I kind of liked it.

  ***

  Nearly four and a half hours later, I set my green tea matcha down on the end table and turned to Janie with annoyed eyes. “You didn’t tell me this show was so graphic.”

  Janie threw her head back and laughed throaty and loud. Whipping her head back to me, her gorgeous red hair fell over her shoulder. “That’s nothin,’ Andi. You seriously need to read the book! It is so intense and beautifully written. Even the stuff that makes me uncomfortable, hell, that shit would make anyone uncomfortable, but even those scenes have imagery and flow that is simply fantastic.”

  She took a sip of her water, and I thought she was done; but after she put her glass down, the pointed look she had for me said otherwise. “And! Now that you have your own redheaded hottie, you owe it to yourself to read the books. That man is practically a Sam Heughan stunt double.”

  I arched my eyebrows. “I need to worry about you steppin’ out on Trent?” I asked as playfully as possible.

  Her chin dipped dramatically. “Of course not. Don’t be that way. You know I’m counting down the days until he gets served the papers. No way I’m gonna jeopardize what my lawyer and I have up our sleeves. Besides, I’m not bedroom material these days. The bleeding may have stopped, but the idea of sex is not appealing. Goes without saying the idea of sex with Trent is beyond repugnant, but we’ve digressed.”

  “Have we?” I asked. “Has Trent made any overtures in that department?”

  Janie looked at me like I should know better. “As far as he knows, I’m still bleeding. I Web-M.D.-ed that shit, and it’s feasible. As thick in the skull as he was about birth control being ineffective in the face of heavy-duty antibiotics, I can’t imagine he’s gonna suddenly be hip about how long it takes a woman to get back into the saddle sexually after a miscarriage.”

  I couldn’t help but shake my head while my lips thinned at Janie’s blithe recounting of her last few months with her husband. Knowing she wasn’t getting any love at home, a nasty thought suddenly occurred to me. “Since you guys aren’t doing anything there, you don’t think he’s —”

  “Having sex with someone else?” she asked with a slight grin. “Don’t know. I would say I don’t care, but that’d be a lie. Would be one more nail in his coffin, and Godspeed to the woman fool enough to open herself to him, let alone her legs to him.”

  “Bitter, much?” I blurted my question not meaning to.

  Janie, God love her, didn’t take it the wrong way. In fact, she chuckled. “Not bitter. I’m just done. You have no idea how ready I am for him to be served the divorce papers. The only wildcard on that is how it’ll play out in terms of my living arrangements. Daddy says I can stay with him, but as you might imagine, I’m not thrilled at the prospect of staying with him when I’m thirty years old.”

  Putting an arm across Janie’s shoulders, I said, “I hate that you’re going through this, honey.”

  She leaned her head onto my shoulder. “Don’t be, babe. His true colors came through with blinding clarity. Absolutely no children in his future. And, as painful as the miscarriage was, it also showed me with clarity that children are an absolute definite in my future. All of that means we’re incompatible. Now, I just gotta extract myself from his toxicity without getting burned any further in the process.”

  My heart broke all over again for her. We were both so excited when she found out she was pregnant. I jokingly said I shouldn’t drink the water around her or Jackie since both of them were preggers. Trent’s horrible reaction had led to so many bad things for Janie, it wasn’t even funny. Her statement about knowing kids were something definite for her made me cautiously hopeful. Kids would only be definite if she found a man willing to go the distance necessary to build a family with her. That wasn’t entirely true. A child would only be definite if she wound up with the means necessary to either adopt or be inseminated. Single motherhood was not an easy row to hoe. Janie was one of the funniest and sweetest people I knew. A long, hard row to hoe was not what she deserved, not in the slightest.

  I was jerked out of my thoughts when Janie yanked her head from my shoulder and nearly shouted, “Time for at least episode one of season two! You cannot miss Claire and Jamie going to France. Seriously, Andrea. The dresses and the pomp and circumstance. I love it! Which means you’ll at least like if not love it too, babe!”

  Liar

  Liar rode into the parking lot of Hock’s. From the number of bikes alone, he knew Major lied to him about why he needed to get to the shop. Major, Rage, him, and very occasionally Yak were the only brothers who dealt with the Hock pawn shop these days. Vamp’s pearly white Harley was sitting adjacent to Cal’s burgundy bike. If those two being here wasn’t enough, he noted Blood and Volt’s bikes in the lot as well. He wasted no time with parking his bike at the back of the shop. Instead, he idled and walked it into a handicapped spot. The shop was closed, so nobody would be complaining about an inaccessible parking space.

  Swinging off his Harley, Liar’s gaze hit Blood’s, and he stiffened. Blood wasn’t exactly a stranger to the pawn shop, but his visits were so infrequent that his presence and the intense look on his face told Liar things were all kinds of fucked up. Crazy as it seemed, good politicians could sense people who wanted their position. Blood had been vice-president of Riot since Volt took the presidency some eight years ago, and even during the term of Liar’s prospecting Blood seemed aware of Liar’s ambition. Not just aware, but Blood called him on it before Liar earned his road name. If his Uncle Delmas told him ‘don’t ask, don’t get,’ then Liar damn sure knew he had to own up to wanting something when someone in a position of power called him on it. To Liar’s way of thinking, it was simply two sides of a similar coin. The truth of the matter was, Liar wanted the vice-presidency. He had no illusions of grandeur whatsoever. The presidency of anything was not for him. A step down from that presidency, though, was something he could contend with in a big way. It wasn’t full-on power, but in the Riot MC particularly, a vice-presidency also wasn’t a position in name only either. To his way of thinking, it could definitely work to both his and the club’s benefit.

  However, striding toward Volt, Blood, Cal, Vamp, and Major, it was the first time he doubted his worth as a possible vice-president candidate. His doubts stemmed from the very absence of the people Liar thought should be there, to begin with. Yak, who was a part-time presence at the shop, but a presence, nevertheless, was nowhere to be found. Then there was Rage, whose company was far more prevalent on a day-to-day basis, but when shit was clearly hitting the fan, he was suddenly missing-in-action, it did nothing more than rub Liar entirely the wrong way. If he was serious about putting his name in the ring for an officer position within the club, Liar knew he needed to curb his judgment right here and now.

  For a man close to his sixties, Major managed to put himself in front of Liar with a quickness that was damned impressive. “Don’t get your boxers twisted, man.”

  After a brief but thorough glance to his left, Liar grumbled, “What the fuck’s goin’ on? I got my temper in check, but you seem to think there’s something goin’ down that requires underwear gettin’ twisted, so how about you lead with that instead. What’s so fucked up it’s gonna piss me off, and it requires me leavin’ my girl in order to come over here to see not only you but two thirds of the fuckin’ club to boot?”

  Volt had his brown hair pulled back in a low slung pony-tail. This left the rest of his facial features in stark relief. He put a beefy hand to Liar’s bicep, and Liar faced Volt. “You gotta keep your shit together, man,” Volt said in an ominous tone.

  Liar’s spine was unyielding at those seven words from his President. It was a pawn shop. There wasn’t a damn thing inside or outside that required him to keep his ‘shit’ together. Sure, they had valuables inside, but there was also an insurance policy which meant anything ripped off could be covered by an insurance claim. Knowing that, Liar knew not only that there was something for him to let h
is shit loose about, but there was something massively wrong.

  Cal moving into his left and Blood taking his right flank was not lost on Liar. He took a deep breath, but it did nothing for his mounting tension. Nobody said anything or made moves to enlighten him on what was going down. Liar crossed his arms on his chest and said, “Some damn body needs to tell me what the fuck is goin’ on. Know the shit Major called me about is bogus at this point, so Volt, Blood, somebody needs to let me in on what’s goin’ down.”

  Major stepped behind Cal’s bulky frame. “Not my idea to give you that bullshit excuse to come in here, Li. Doesn’t change the fact that what made me bring you in here is still total bullshit.”

  The only thing that prevented Liar’s angry gaze from fully exerting itself on Major was Cal and his extremely pissed off mood.

  Blood ran a hand through his long brown hair. “You feel like you’ve been followed lately, Li?”

  “No,” Liar said, but felt his blood run cold at the thought.

  Blood looked to Cal. “Let’s take him around back.”

  Liar suddenly remembered that they actually did have items outside the shop. His acquisition of the Trans-Am went through, and they had stored it behind the shop in a grassy but fenced-in area until Patch had room at the shop where he worked. They rounded the corner of the building, and Liar found that Rage was present. His hair was pulled back in a man-bun, and when he looked at Liar, the anger in his green eyes was raw and unfocused.

  “I’d say I’m gonna kill ‘em, man, but I don’t know who the fuck to go after.”

  Liar’s eyebrows furrowed. Then he took in the vintage Trans-Am. The windshield had been beaten. The hood and front quarter panel had been spray painted. It wasn’t ideal, but a windshield could be replaced. While he kind of liked the paint job on the Trans-Am when he first found it, now it would need a new one. That also wasn’t the end of the world. He’d thought the car would look much better in black or red, instead of white. As he moved closer to the car though, what looked like a strangely shaped scrap of paper caught his eye. It wasn’t just paper. It was the outer-paper wrapper of a pound of sugar, and it was situated just off from the gas tank. That was a repair that might be more problematic.