Bikers didn’t do office hours.
This I liked a lot. I didn’t take this freedom and fuck over Tack, Ride and thus Chaos. I got the job done and these days that meant actually getting it done without fucking up, finding or calling Tack to ask how I’d fucked up and then redoing it properly. Sometimes Tack rolled in with me on the back of his bike at seven, seven thirty in the morning and I’d get started then. Other times, or, say, after energetic mornings it was closer to nine (or even ten). Sometimes, we swung out of the forecourt close to six at night. I worked until I didn’t need to anymore and if Tack wasn’t ready to go or he wasn’t around and I didn’t have my car, one of the boys took me home or I hung in the store, in the office, in the Compound common area or outside it with the boys.
Life was, except for the upcoming rivers of Russian mob blood, entirely stress free.
And thus life was, except for the Russian mob, entirely good.
“Yeah,” I answered Tack. “Closing up shop now.”
“I’ll call Tug, find out where he is and either he or I’ll call you back and give you his ETA.”
“Thanks, honey.”
“Later, babe.”
“Later, Tack.”
He disconnected. I flipped my phone closed and then I shut down the office. I grabbed my phone and my purse, headed out, locked up and clicked on my high heels to the Compound.
As I moved over the tarmac of the forecourt, I noticed there was only one bike outside the Compound. This I found surprising. It didn’t take a master strategist to figure out that Dog’s text and Tack’s call stating he would be late meant Tack had given them the order to be on some mission. Their missions didn’t always require every member in attendance, this was true. But if it didn’t, there were always at least two or more bikes outside the Compound.
I’d never seen only one.
Well, whatever. It wasn’t as if I had the comings and goings of the members of the Chaos MC down pat.
I walked into the deserted common area of the Compound, an area that looked a lot like a seedy bar except seedier. Tatty or chipped mismatched furniture including chairs, tables, couches and armchairs. A pool table. A long, curved bar that started almost at the front door and curved around toward the side wall. A door at the back wall beyond which held the boys’ rooms. There were neon beer signs on the walls but not many of them. Most of the adornment were pictures of boys in the Club, past and present, all candid. There were not a few but several framed Chaos emblems. One of them was a large, white flag tacked to the back wall that had the Chaos emblem in the middle with the words “Fire” and “Wind” on one side and “Ride and “Free” on the other. This same flag, incidentally, was flying from a flagpole on the top of Ride underneath an American flag. And last, there were a number of Harley Davidson insignias here and there, framed, tacked and some were stickers randomly stuck to the wood-panelled walls.
It wasn’t clean. It was, as I mentioned, seedy. Still, for some reason, I thought it was cool.
I headed across the room, my heels clicking on the wood floors and made it into the back hall. I turned right and moved down it toward the end where Tack’s room was.
My timing was bad for many reasons. Me just being there was one. Me hitting the hall opposite an open door when the noise came out was another. And what the noise meant had happened at that exact moment was the last.
The noise made me stop in shock, my head turned and in the open door, for anyone walking by to see, was the brunette I saw Tack kissing that morning I started my first day at Ride. She was naked astride a naked man who I saw beyond her, his shoulders and most of his back up on the headboard, his muscled, tattooed arms spread wide and holding on, was Hopper. And the noise I heard was Hop groaning through an orgasm.
For some reason, instead of riding Hop facing him, she was riding Hop facing his feet.
And the door.
And, when her eyes hit mine while she was still bouncing on top of Hop, me.
Three things hit me, they hit me hard and they hit me all at once.
First, I didn’t like seeing her again and the reasons why didn’t need to be explained.
Second, I didn’t like seeing what I was seeing at all and it wouldn’t matter who the participants were. But it was exponentially worse that she was one of them.
And last, I didn’t like seeing her riding Hop because Hop had an old lady who I knew had been in his bed for years. Her name was Mitzi. She wasn’t exactly the warmest, fuzziest woman on the planet but our paths had crossed more than once at the store or the Compound. We’d partied together the Friday before. And although she was a little hard and definitely tough, she was also kind of nice, could be funny and it was clear she loved Hop.
I was frozen to the spot even though I really, really wanted my feet to move or, preferably, my whole body to go up in a puff of smoke and rematerialize in the forecourt, back in time one minute before where I would have remembered I needed to go back to the office for something, anything. Instead I stood there, staring into her eyes.
And when I did, slowly, she smiled. It was catty. It was knowing. It communicated something I did not get but I did get that I didn’t like it one bit.
Luckily, it also made me come unstuck and I hurried down the hall to Tack’s room. The door was closed, I opened it, entered then I closed it. Once in his room, I stood still. But inside I was shaken.
I tried to remember if anyone had told me how long Mitzi and Hop had been together and I couldn’t. Though I did know it was a long time. I also knew they weren’t married but they lived together and had two kids together. This I knew because Mitzi told me herself. And although Mitzi was a tough broad, it wasn’t only clear she loved Hop, it was super clear she loved their kids. So however long they’d been together, it had been long enough to have two children.
And, door open for anyone walking by to see, he was screwing another woman.
“Okay, this isn’t good,” I whispered to the empty room and jumped when my phone rang in my hand.
I looked at the display and sucked in a calming breath, flipped it open and put it to my ear.
“Hey, honey,” I greeted with false brightness to cover my freak out.
“What’s the matter?” Tack asked immediately.
Damn. I could never pull one over on him, not even on the phone.
“Nothing,” I lied then quickly moved on. “What’s Tug’s ETA?”
“I’ll tell you when you tell me what’s up.”
“Nothing’s up. I’m in your room about to grab the envelope. Is Tug going to be here soon?”
Silence then, softly, “What’s the matter, Red?”
“Nothing, Tack,” I lied again. “I talked with you maybe ten minutes ago. How could something be the matter in ten minutes?”
“The how is that you’re you. Something could be the matter in ten seconds.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. Our run was going well, it was fun, it was stress-free, we had easy but that didn’t mean I wasn’t me and Tack wasn’t Tack so the banter had not died.
But this wasn’t about him being a bossy biker, me being sassy and us trading slightly heated words that were mostly lighthearted.
This was something else. I just didn’t know what and I wasn’t going to explain what until I knew why I was feeling the edgy I was feeling.
So I hid behind a veil of sass and snapped, “Well something isn’t the matter now but it will be if you don’t quit asking me what’s the matter.”
This brought more silence that Tack didn’t break.
“Kane,” I called then prompted, “Tug?”
To which he said quietly, “Hop.”
Oh hell.
I supposed, being the president of a motorcycle club, having your finger on the pulse of absolutely everything and being able to read people and figure them out was a good thing.
Being that man’s woman and him having all that sometimes was not. And one of those times was now.
“Yes, Hop,” I con
firmed because if I didn’t, he wouldn’t let it go which was something else I decided in that moment I wasn’t all fired up about. “Or, more precisely Hop, who has an old lady and two kids. Added to that is Hopper’s old lady, Mitzi, who isn’t my bestest bud but she is in the sisterhood, considering she has a vagina. So, clearly, seeing Hop doing what Hop was just doing, something I’m guessing you knew he was in the middle of doing and that’s why he’s not on his way to you, didn’t make me want to do cartwheels since we sisters need to band together no matter if we’re not best buds. And, incidentally, seeing what I saw at all wasn’t much fun. Hop has his own brand of hot but I don’t want to see a brunette riding it. And last and mostly what’s the matter is that brunette was your brunette.”
“She’s not mine, baby,” Tack replied quickly and gently.
“No, apparently she belongs to Chaos. What? Do you pass her around?” I clipped back.
“We don’t but she does.”
Ohmigod!
I might need to learn the ways of the biker world but that, that was something I didn’t need to know. At least not now, alone, in the Compound, two doors down from a skank and a cheater and nowhere near a bottle of wine or, better yet, one of tequila.
He might know all, see all and figure it all out but he also had to learn when to shut up and let it go.
“Okay, handsome, before I didn’t want to talk about this. Now I really don’t want to talk about this,” I warned.
“This is another way of our world, Red, and if you keep control on that attitude long enough, when I have time, I’ll explain it to you,” Tack replied.
I’d heard that before.
Way, way, way too often.
And just then, with that brunette’s catty, knowing smile burned on my brain, I’d had enough.
“Would that time be later?” I asked sarcastically.
“Uh… yeah.”
“Seems you’re going to explain a lot of things later and it seems you avoiding doing that, that means those things are like that brunette. Shit you aren’t explaining because you don’t actually want me to know.”
“Tyra –”
“Ignorance is not bliss, Tack.”
“Red –”
“Sometimes it’s lies in the form of keeping something from someone with bullshit promises of ‘later’,” I kept ranting.
“Darlin’ –”
“And in the end, any lie is a hurt that burns and sometimes that burn can kill.”
Tack was silent.
I was not.
“Call Tug. Tell him I’m getting a taxi. And as for you, you need to send someone else to get that envelope. I’m thinking I need a little time so I’d prefer to wake up alone tomorrow. When I’m ready to talk, I’ll call you. But you need to know, whenever I’m ready, it’ll be later.”
“Goddamn it, Tyra –” I heard him ground out but I flipped my phone closed.
This time we would talk my later.
I yanked open the door and stomped down the hall. I didn’t look into Hop’s room and I avoided it so studiously, I didn’t even know if the door was open.
I would discover Hop was done when I walked out of the Compound, my phone open in preparation to make a call to the taxi company, and I saw him on his bike.
When he saw me, he lifted his chin and called, “Cherry! Yo!”
I didn’t know if, when I saw him in his room, he was so in the throes of what was happening he didn’t see me. Or if he didn’t care. Or if he expected me to get the way of their world and not care because he didn’t look embarrassed or, indeed, anything except Hop.
I gave him a chin lift as his bike roared then he roared off with another flick of the wrist to me.
I glared after his bike, spared some time thinking about poor, cheated on Mitzi while I called a cab then I stood outside the Compound knowing exactly what that edgy meant.
Chaos, fuck, most MCs, women don’t factor.
What? Do you pass her around?
We don’t but she does.
Crap.
Truth be told, it hurt when I fell in love with Tack over tequila and he kicked me out of bed. But until that moment, I didn’t realize the hurt that burned deeper was seeing him with the brunette only a day later. He’d explained it. I hadn’t made an impression on him and clearly that had changed since.
But every girl, or at least the ones I knew, hoped like everything that when they met the one, they’d make an impression. And thus they wouldn’t ever be replaced and certainly not the very next night.
And as ridiculous as it was, as inflated an expectation, as admittedly unrealistic and even stupid, that didn’t mean it wasn’t downright true.
I didn’t know how Mitzi felt about Hopper. Maybe she understood this. Seeing the hard in her face, the tough in her manner, I suspected she did.
But I didn’t.
And I might not watch TV and I might have lived in black and white but I wasn’t literally unconscious all my life. I might not be savvy to the ways of the world like Tack but I wasn’t an idiot.
Bikers chose their lifestyles for a reason. And men became members of motorcycle clubs for deeper reasons. And it wasn’t a secret sect of society that lived quiet and kept clandestine.
Fire and Wind. Riding free. That was their motto.
Free.
Free.
Tack was avoiding all the “laters” because rivers of blood and the Russian mob freaked me out. But also because he knew this wasn’t my world and he wanted me mired in it before he lowered the boom.
Unfortunately, shit happened and he couldn’t control when the boom lowered.
And, damn it all to hell, that boom fucking hurt.
And unfortunately, that boom wasn’t near done with me.
“You got your place with the Club, I got mine.”
I jumped, twisted at the waist, tearing my eyes from their angry contemplation of the forecourt to see the brunette standing two feet outside the door to the Compound. She was dressed, fortunately, though she didn’t wear a lot of clothes. Unfortunately, seeing her and processing all that was her, not only was she gorgeous in her skanky, slutty way, she also had a great body. Making matters worse, she was standing, one hand on her hitched hip which every woman knew meant she was prepared for our upcoming verbal smackdown. And last, she was also wearing her catty, knowing smile.
I didn’t reply and turned back to the forecourt. Weirdly, my mind conjured up the image of us, two exact opposites standing in front of an MC’s compound, me in my tight skirt, cute but smart blouse and sex kitten heels and her in her cutoff, ragged-edged, very short jean skirt, barely-there, skintight top and platform slut sandals.
And it wasn’t lost on me which one of us didn’t fit.
I heard her heels clicking to me and I kept my eyes glued to the tarmac but I felt and heard her stop close.
“Had ‘em all, ‘cept the recruits. Don’t fuck recruits. They get their cut, that’s when I break ‘em in.”
Something for Roscoe, Tug and Shy to look forward to.
I pulled in breath and kept my eyes on the forecourt.
“Tack’s my favorite,” she whispered and that was when I turned to her.
“He’s also mine.”
Her catty, knowing smile got bigger, cattier and more knowing.
“As you can tell, girl, I don’t mind sharing.”
My hand itched to slap her. No, actually, my hand itched to slap someone else. Her, I wanted to know why she did what she did to the sisterhood but worse, what she did to herself. But instead of asking, I again turned my gaze to the tarmac, willing the cab to show the fuck up already.
“You’re up for it, we can share together. Tack likes it like that. Won’t be the first time I gave it to him like that so I know.”
I took that blow and while I did it took everything else not to react visibly to it.
But inside it burned deep.
He wasn’t a choirboy. He was a biker. But I didn’t need some skanky brunette reminding me
of that.
What I needed was a man who knew I didn’t need it and shielding me from it. Not setting me up by sending me into a Compound that contained it to get a mysterious envelope.
My eyes went back to her just in time for her to keep talking.
“You’re his old lady so I’ll let you have his dick. I’ll sit on his face,” she offered her take on our plan of attack to pleasure my man together.
“Maybe it would be a good idea for you to quit talking,” I suggested quietly.
“Right, he’s good with his mouth. I get you want that. I’ll take his dick.”
I held her eyes. She kept smiling at me.
This went on a long time.
Finally, her eyes slid to the side and she murmured, “Cab’s here.”
“FYI,” I started, “that party you invited me to. I’ll take a pass.”
She shrugged then delivered her next blow. “That’s okay. He wants it like that, he knows where to find it.”
I had no retort. None at all. It wasn’t my place to tell her to get gone. It wasn’t my place to tell her I better not see her again. She belonged to Chaos in her way and I did in mine. We accepted our places and the boys called the shots.
Damn.
I had that box Tack talked about over me, closing me in, I couldn’t see clear and Tack was the one who put it there.
No, it was me.
I put it there.
God.
I tore my eyes free of hers and walked to the cab.
Then I got in and gave him my address.
The driver had pulled out on Broadway when my phone rang and I saw it was Tack.
Over it, way, way over it, when I put the phone to my ear, I asked as greeting, “Do you not understand the concept of me needing some time?”
To this, my heart stopped beating when he replied on a growl, “You call Mitzi and share, you answer to me. And if you answer to me, when you do, I won’t go gentle.”
Then I heard the disconnect.
Unseeing, unfeeling, not hearing a thing, not thinking a thing, I flipped my phone shut.
I didn’t cry until I closed my front door and I was home.
Motorcycle Man Page 27
