by Krane, Kasey
So more than anything, this trip to Mexico was a way of getting Jules out of the way. If she wasn’t in Deming, she couldn’t ask the wrong question of the wrong person, and bring a shit ton of problems down on her head.
After the internal debate up in Coronado, I realized I was no farther along in deciding what the fuck to do with the club and Ghost than I had been before, and I sure as hell didn’t know what to do with Jules. She was leaving tomorrow - seven days in Deming, and she’d managed to turn my entire life upside down.
She had her arms snuggled around my waist, stroking my abs and chest softly as we drove through the desert. Almost absentmindedly, as if she didn’t realize what she was doing. At first, it drove me to distraction and I wanted nothing more than for her hands to dive southward and stroke other parts of my body, but after a few hundred miles on the bike with her, I started to realize that her strokes were soothing. A balm. A loving caress to my soul that I never expected.
I hadn’t ever bothered to look for someone to become a part of my life. Some part of me - the part that had even bothered to think about this - just expected me to be single for the rest of my life, fucking any hot woman that came through the club (and there were plenty of those to choose from) and riding my bike in the purest expression of freedom a man could make. And that was it, and that was enough, and I was content.
But now…now I wanted Jules by my side. I wanted Jules hanging onto me as I rode through the desert, snuggled against my back. I wanted Jules asking questions like, “How long do saguaro cacti take to grow their arms?” and “People intentionally sleep on the ground on a regular basis?” and “Are you sure about this restaurant?” when we pulled up in front of a particularly questionable establishment. I wanted her laughter and her intelligence and her love.
Fuck!
I punched the gas, pushing my bike to the limit. I was goddamned turned upside down by this goddamn New York journalist, and I didn’t know what the hell to do about it. I couldn't follow her back to New York - what the hell would a country boy like me do in New York City, away from my club? - and she sure wouldn’t want to move to “hell on earth,” as she jokingly called Deming. Not that I blamed her. It was north of 100 degrees in Deming today, and would hit that temperature every day this week, and next week, and the week after that. Only masochists moved to Deming.
I pushed every last one of these thoughts out of my mind - Ghost and the club and Jules leaving me. For today, this last glorious day, I was going to forget all of that. I was going to tell reality and the world to fuck off. I was going to enjoy this last slice of paradise with Jules, and then tomorrow…tomorrow I’d do whatever I needed to do.
But today was a day to be enjoyed, nothing more.
* * *
I pulled to a gentle stop at the parking lot, hating to wake Jules from her ride-induced sleep, and especially to make her stop stroking me through my t-shirt. And especially to cause her to pull her amazing rack away from my back, where I’d been enjoying them for so long.
“Jules,” I said softly, backing into a parking spot and putting the kickstand down. “Jules, you gotta wake up.”
Mumbling through her helmet and visor, she sat up, pulling away from me, and I instantly regretted stopping. Maybe we could just ride to the ends of the earth…
“Are we there?” she asked sleepily after she’d popped the visor up on her helmet. She swung her right leg off and stood for a moment next to the bike, trying to get her bearings. She unbuckled her helmet and pulled it off, releasing her gorgeous blonde hair. I curbed the impulse to wrap her thick braid around my hand and pull her towards me. I couldn’t give the border guards a show, no matter how much I wanted to.
We locked our helmets onto the bike and she grabbed her mammoth-sized purse and we were off. Crossing through the gates to Mexico was always the easy part - Mexico never quibbled about having people come in. It was going the other direction that was trickier.
“Why are we parking on the US side of the border?” Jules asked.
“The line to drive through to Mexico is much longer,” I said, pointing to a long line of vehicles that stretched out into the distance. “If you park on this side and walk to that side, you get through much faster. Nogales is literally split in two - Nogales, New Mexico and Nogales, Mexico are the same town, split in two down the middle by the fence. So parking in New Mexico and walking to Mexico is the fastest way to get from one country to the other. The good news is, on the Mexican side of the fence, shopping is a hell of a lot cheaper.”
She looked around, assessing my claim. There were vendors everywhere, hawking everything from blankets to baskets to sombreros to questionable pharmaceuticals. I figured we’d skip the drugs and stick with the legal shit today. I dealt with illegal shit often enough.
We wandered up and down the aisles, listening to the vendors cries, “Best prices in Nogales! Blankets for cheap!” as we walked. It was a dusty town, much like Deming, and wouldn’t make it on the Gorgeous Vacation Site of the World list, that’s for damn sure, but there was an energy in Nogales that I liked.
We stopped for a couple of ice-cold Coronas at a street vendor - even I, who stuck with Jack and Coke at any bar in the US, acquiesced to drinking a Corona while in Mexico. We wandered farther down the street until Jules stumbled upon a booth selling feminine sombreros. Instead of the typical sombreros with red, green, and white stitching on them these sombreros had giant purple and pink flowers stitched all over.
“Oh Bishop!” she exclaimed, picking one of them up and plunking it on her head. “What do you think - should I start practicing the Mexican Hat Dance?” I grinned down at her. Gods, she was gorgeous, with her blonde hair and green eyes and pink lips that I wanted to suck on for hours on end.
“I think you’d make a great bailarina folklorica, except for your white skin and your blonde hair and your green eyes,” I teased her. “But other than that, I’m sure you’d do great.”
She stuck her tongue out at me and carefully placed the hat back on the table. She ignored the vendor’s increasingly cheaper prices for the hat as we walked away. I steered us towards a tamale vendor.
“Two beef, two chicken,” I said to the vendor, who quickly served them up. Jules carefully unwrapped the tinfoil on her chicken tamale and raised it to her mouth when I grabbed her arm in shock.
“What are you doing?” I half-yelled, and then began laughing. I pulled her over to the shade beneath the overhang of a building so we could eat in relative cool.
“Did you eat any Mexican food in New York City?” I asked drily before taking the tamale from her and unwrapping one end. “This is a corn husk. You could chew that all day long and just end up with a jaw ache for your efforts. It’s what’s inside that you’ll love.”
“Oohhhhh…” she said, accepting the tamale back from me. “So, is there any chance that I can leave New Mexico without having ‘Gringo’ tattooed to my forehead?”
“Yes, a great chance actually. ‘Gringos’ are male. Don’t you worry, darlin’, you’re gonna leave with ‘Gringa’ tattooed to your forehead.”
“Perfect!” she laughed. “Just what I’ve always aspired to.”
We leaned against the building, the cool cement brickwork a stark counterpart to the heat of the city. After splitting the last tamale, we began wandering again.
“We should go sit in a cantina for a bit - get out of this heat,” I suggested. I was a little worried about Jules’s health in the heat and sun.
“That’d be great,” Jules agreed, a little too quickly, and I wondered if she wasn’t feeling top-notch. She wouldn’t compalin until she dropped, which made me even more aware of her every move.
We walked into a dark, cool bar, and I heard Jules’s happy sigh of relief at the conditioned air pouring over us. TVs showing soccer games plastered the walls, and Spanish surrounded us, enveloping us, but I was sure that this close to the border, the bartender would speak both Spanish and English. Our livelihood depended on it.
> “Two Coronas and two waters,” I ordered at the bar, and then wound my way back to the table Jules was sitting at. She looked a little tired, a little worn down, and I vowed to myself to take better care of her.
“Welcome to Mexico,” I said, toasting her with my Corona. We clinked beer bottles and began sucking the cool liquid down.
“Sooo…” Jules said slowly, and I instantly knew that she was debating whether I’d love her news, or hate it. I kept a neutral face as I looked at her, but inside, I was worried. Nothing good ever started out this way.
“I asked my boss last night for some more time here,” she said. “He told me yes, but only until Wednesday. I just don’t feel like I have enough yet for my article, and I…I didn’t want to leave yet.”
I held my breath, watching her face. She didn’t want to leave because she didn’t have enough for her article, or because she didn’t want to leave me? She’d never so much as said, “I kinda like you,” let alone, “Hey Bishop, you make my heart go pitter-patter every time I look at you,” or even better, “Bishop, I never want to leave.”
But then the timeline of it hit me like a punch to the stomach.
Goddamn motherfucking son-of-a-bitch.
Jules was going to be here on Monday.
The Sangre were going to be here on Monday. With large guns. And a very angry Ghost, who was going to be freaking out about having a journalist under foot.
This so wasn’t going to go well.
I gave a pained smile and said, “Well, that just leaves more time for us!” I attempted to inject a note of happiness into my voice when I said it, because truly, I was happy. I didn’t want Jules to leave - ever, I silently acknowledged to myself - but at the same time, how did that fit with the club? How did she fit into the club? And my life?
Goddamn motherfucking son-of-a-bitch.
30
Bishop
I dropped Jules off at The Hideaway with all of her many purchases (although, sadly, not the sombrero - I couldn’t figure out how we’d strap the damn thing to a Harley) and then with some gruff excuse that I had “club business,” I roared off to the clubhouse. I had to talk to Ghost before things got any worse.
“Where’s Ghost?” I demanded, as soon as I got there.
“Back in the chapel, last I seen,” Knight slurred, nursing his usual whiskey as he sat at the bar.
“Thanks,” I said as I brushed by and made my way back to the chapel. I gave two short knocks and then opened the door, hoping to find Ghost alone.
Well, at least one thing went right today.
“I’ve been waiting for you all goddamn day!” Ghost shouted, half rising from the head of the table. He glared at me. “Where the fuck you been?”
Shiiiittttt.
“I took Jules down to Mexico for the day. She hadn’t been before, and I figured it was a good way to get her out of the club’s hair.” I shrugged nonchalantly. I would only be able to keep shit together if I was able to convince Ghost that Jules was nothing more than a garden-variety fuck, one of the many women who threw themselves at the legendary Dead Legion. That was something Ghost could understand.
Feelings…not so much.
“Well, you coulda fuckin’ told your prez,” Ghost fired back.
“It was spontaneous. I didn’t think about it until we were already in Mexico and the cell service was shit down there.” Actually, I didn’t trust Ghost not to send another member after us to tail us and report back to Ghost. The last thing I’d do is broadcast my movements to Ghost.
“Well, you better get that hot piece of ass back to New York City, where she belongs. Tonight. I don’t want her snooping ‘round here anymore. She apparently went down to the library and was asking the librarians about the death rate from having the Dead Legion in town. Goddammit, I knew having a journalist here was a bad idea! Fucking New York liberals don’t know a damn thing about us. I don’t know why the hell you let her nose around in our club, but I want her out. Now!”
I bit down on my tongue so hard, I was sure I was going to chew it in half. Fucker never remembered it when he made a mistake - it was always someone else’s poor choices that caused the problems, never Ghost. I shoulda known this was coming.
“Well, she’s supposed to leave tomorrow. Is that soon enough?” I fired back, my anger making it hard not to end that question with a choice swear word. Or six.
“Tomorrow? Hell no! Who knows what shit she might get into between then and now. In fact, where the fuck is she right now?” Ghost craned his neck, looking around me as if expecting to see Jules leap out from behind me.
Jules’s short, but not that short…
“She’s in the hotel room, taking a nap.” At least I hope she’s still there, and not off at the library again. Wouldn’t that just be a clusterfuck. “It’s been a long coupla days, between the charity ride and the trip to Mexico. She’s not used to being on a bike for hours at a time.
“But anyway, it doesn’t make much sense to send her back tonight. All that’ll do is raise suspicions. She’ll want to know why she has to leave tonight instead of tomorrow, and her boss will too. It’s better to just let her stay the night, and I’ll personally escort her to the airport tomorrow. She’ll go back to New York none the wiser.”
Ghost paused, thinking. Normally, he didn’t let anyone influence his decisions, so I took this as a good sign.
“Fine,” he finally barked. “Tomorrow, get her ass on a plane and don’t leave until that plane is high in the sky.”
I nodded abruptly and headed out.
I had no idea what to tell Jules. I sincerely doubted she’d take this lying down, but I also didn’t know how to persuade her without telling her that Ghost was as mean as a copperhead snake, and about as trustworthy.
Oh, and the Dead Legion were running guns in semis.
And that a huge deal was going down with the Sangre in just a few short days.
Yeah, without telling her any of that.
Goddamn motherfucking son-of-a-bitch.
I pulled up in front of Jules’s motel room, and sat there, thinking. I wanted one more night before the shit hit the fan.
One more night to hold Jules in my arms. One more night of biting back the words I was dying to say. One more night to treasure when she was gone.
Did that make me a heartless bastard?
Probably.
I gave two short knocks on the door and then turned the doorknob to go on it, but couldn’t. She’d locked the door.
Good girl.
She opened the door with the chain still in place, peered out at me, gave a happy yelp of surprise, and then reopened the door, this time with the chain gone.
“I didn’t know I’d get you back tonight!” she said enthusiastically, throwing herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck. Her wet, cold hair pressed against my cheek and I breathed in her shampoo deeply. She smelled amazing. She always smelled amazing, but somehow tonight, even more so.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said casually, swooping down to kiss her on the forehead before walking in and closing the door behind me. “There was a problem with a semi load going to the wrong customer, but I got it straightened out. I thought I’d come by and see how you were feeling.”
“Much better after my shower.” She looked down at her magnificent thighs that I wanted to kiss my way up and said ruefully, “I think I’ve had a bit too much sun.” I looked down again, only then realizing how pink her skin was.
“Oh damn, does it hurt?” I reached out with my oil-stained fingers and brushed against her skin, feeling the warmth radiating off it. The contrast between my stained fingers and her sexy pink skin…
What the hell is a chick like this doing with a guy like me?
“Nah, not too bad. I’ve just slathered on some more aloe vera.”
I suddenly found myself in the odd position of being stupidly jealous of aloe vera. I shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position in my jeans.
“You want to go
out and grab a bite to eat? We haven’t eaten in hours.” I tried not to sound like a worried mother hen, but fuck all if I was going to let Jules pass out from lack of food again on my watch.
“Oh, that’d be great! I’d been thinking I’d wander down the street and see if I could find a place to eat, but I’d love to go with you. I’ll be right back.” She disappeared into the bathroom, reappearing with flip-flops and her hair pulled back into a ponytail.
I realized that tonight was the first time I’d ever seen her without makeup on. And unlike, oh say, 99% of the women I fucked before, Jules was just as gorgeous without it. I’d always gone for the sexy whores who glammed it up, slathering on the makeup and the hairspray and the fake nails. Jules wasn’t any of that. How the hell did a cool chick like her come out of New York City?
After we were seated in the diner, I asked her just that.
“Oh!” she said, laughing. “Well, I guess it’s because I’m not actually from the city. I grew up in a small city about two hours outside of Manhattan - a place you’d never heard of, I promise. Anyway, people think of New York state as being New York City and then…well, that’s it, but actually, there are some really rural parts of the state with cows and horses and hay fields and whatever. I went to college at Syracuse University, which is in New York state, and then moved to the city after I graduated because, well, that’s where all journalism graduates in the area move. You can’t make it big in rural New York.
“And, I wanted to live in the big city. I wanted the energy and the excitement and the fun that came from living in the coolest city in the world. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in New York City?” She laughed a little bitterly.
“But I’m not sure I ever quite fit in. I mean, I loved all the cool restaurants and museums and whatever, but the friends I did manage to make all wanted to go out clubbing every night, and that’s just not my style. And it doesn’t help, working at Pout. I mean, my God, you couldn’t find a more celebrity infatuated group of people outside of Hollywood. The fashion choices…hell, I’ve seen better dressed farmer’s wives. At least they don’t wear ridiculous platforms that make it hard to walk down the street.”
