True North

by Kelly Collins

  “Oh, hell, did you actually think I was…holy shit, Alexa. What kind of man do you think I am?” His tone has changed from playful to gruff. I know how to deal with gruff; it’s mostly what I’ve seen since I arrived.

  “What was I supposed to think? Pretty young things would show up and disappear upstairs, and you would emerge sometime later, buttoning your shirt or freshly showered. A short time later, the girl would come downstairs and you would hand her a few twenties. You called them your regulars. What was I supposed to think?”

  He stands there and stares at me. In the moments that follow, I feel sick to my stomach. He says nothing until I point out he’s burning the pancakes.

  “Shit!” He removes the pan from the stove and dumps the blackened pancakes in the trashcan. He sprays the pan with oil and pours more batter into it.

  “I’m sorry. I know better now, and it all makes sense, but until last night I had no idea what you were doing or dealing with.” I rub my lips along the baby’s head and revel in his soft skin and baby fine hair.

  “Tell me, when I called you last night, what did you think I was asking you to do?”

  My cheeks must have turned bright red, because he begins to grumble. He slaps a few pancakes on two plates and comes to the table.

  “Why did you come over if you thought I wanted to hire you for sex? I don’t see you as that type of girl. Did I read you wrong as well?”

  The last part of his question punches a hole in my chest. I read him wrong from the get-go, and I passed judgment on the kind of man he is—what I thought he was.

  “No, I came over to set you straight, but you dragged me upstairs, rattled off a slew of directions, and ran out.”

  I pull at the single tear that falls from my eye. I have never been so ashamed of myself. I’m not the kind of woman who makes snap judgments. Tyler took so much away from me, and my ability to read people is one thing I need to get back. I can’t move through life thinking all men are bad.

  “I can understand how you could get the wrong impression. I didn’t think to tell you I had a baby upstairs. He’s my number one priority right now, and I’m trying to make it all work. One day I was a bar owner, and the next day I was a father. It literally happened that fast. I’m playing catch up. I have only recently felt like I had a handle on things, and the last few days have been the best. You breezed into my life, and somehow things seem easier. You handle the bar as if you’ve been doing it for years. It’s given me the time to straighten a few things out. Thank you.”

  I just accused this man of being a lecher, and he’s thanking me for helping him out. “I don’t deserve your thanks. I passed judgment on you. I’m not normally like that. I’ve recently been through some of the toughest months of my life, and those events have changed me. I’m trying to find my way back to me. I’ve lost my compass.”

  “I understand. We’re all finding our way.”

  We sit in silence and eat. He makes a killer pancake. I still have the baby cradled in my arm. He has fallen asleep. His little bowed lips flutter as he breathes in and out.

  “Zane, can I ask you a question?” I look into his eyes, trying to convey my sincerity.

  “Sure, I think with you, I need to be an open book. Next, you might think I have bodies buried in the basement.”

  I gasp at the thought. “There’s a basement?”

  “No, what’s your question?” His bristly grumpiness is peeking out.

  “Where is Aaron’s mom?”

  He looks at me, then looks down at the baby in my arms. His expression softens each time he looks at Aaron. I can tell he loves his little boy beyond everything else.

  “I couldn’t honestly tell you. We weren’t a couple. We hooked up a few times when she was in town.”

  “Wow, you said earlier you were a bar owner one day, and a daddy the next. You make it sound like you weren’t prepared for his arrival. Surely, you had months to prepare.”

  The roar of his laughter startles Aaron. His arms fly out. He pulls them back and falls into his peaceful slumber. I gently stroke the dark brown curls on his head.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh at your question. I was laughing at the situation. I found out about Aaron the day he was born. I received a call at five in the morning from Tabitha, saying, ‘I just had your kid. You need to be here today, or he’s going up for adoption.’ She gave me the hospital name and the city she was in, then hung up. I closed the bar for the day and headed to San Francisco. When I showed up, the nurses had my name written down at the desk. They brought me to the nursery and wheeled a baby in a plastic crib to me. The nametag on the crib said, ‘baby x.’ She didn’t even give him a name. I was told she gave birth and left. I fell in love with him the minute I saw him. I was a total goner when I held him. I paid their hospital bill and brought him home.”

  “You had no idea? A woman calls you and tells you she had your kid, and you came running? You’re an amazing man.”

  “All I could think of was my son was not going to be adopted out, when I had the means to care for him. What man would give up his child?”

  The tears well up in my eyes. I want to run––to escape, but I have this little bundle in my arms and I’m stuck.

  “Hey, I have to get back to my home away from…” I stall on the last word, because right now Shady Lane is my home. “I have to go. Let me help clean up, and I’ll be on my way. Thanks for breakfast.” I stand up and hand Aaron to his dad. I pick up the plates and move them into the kitchen.

  “Leave them, I can do them in a bit. Why are you rushing off? You don’t have to leave. I’m not asking you to go. I would rather you stay.”

  I rush around, trying to tidy his kitchen. I need to go. I stop what I’m doing and tell him, “I can’t stay. I have a job, and I need to work. I have a deadline to meet.”

  “That’s right, you mentioned something about a job. Tell me about this job. What is it that you do to pay your bills, Alexa?”

  I lean against the kitchen counter and speak. “I’m a contract worker, and I write computer code. I prefer to be called a computer programmer, but I’m often called a software engineer.”

  His eyes grow large. A smile spreads across his face.

  “I shanghai a genius to wait tables, pour beer, and then further demean her by asking her to babysit. I’m sorry, Alexa.”

  “Don’t apologize. The last three days have been some of my best in recent months. I have loved helping out in the bar. I’ve met so many nice people. I had this preconceived notion about who bikers were and what they were about. I’ve been schooled. Most of them are just normal people living real lives. I play this game with names. I love to guess what people’s names are. I’m almost always wrong, but the bar is a great place to practice.”

  “What was my name?” he asks. He looks at me intently. He always seems to have a scowl on his face.

  “Does that scowl always work for you? Do you just intimidate people into giving you what you want?”

  “It doesn’t seem to work with you.” He shakes his head.

  “I called you Jack in my head. I considered Tom, but neither were correct. In the end it was a victory, because your name had four letters, and so did Jack.”

  “You have a very flexible grading scale.”

  “Hey, you have to take your wins where you can get them.” I look around the kitchen and decide it’s as good as it’s getting. I scoop up my dirty pajamas and head toward the door.

  Zane’s hand reaches up to the door, making it impossible for me to open. “Come over for dinner tonight. Aaron and I are going to BBQ. He makes a wicked good barbecue chicken.”

  I look at the sleeping baby and the man holding him. I could lose my heart quickly with these two. I can’t afford to open myself up for injury again.

  “I can’t, I’ll be working all night. I’ll see you tomorrow. What time does my shift start?”

  He looks happy at the mention of my returning to work.

  “How about four o’cloc
k? The bar is open until midnight, so if you want eight hours, then come at four.”

  “I’ll see you then. If you can have a W-4 Form ready for me, I would appreciate it. As a money man, you have to know that paying me under the table is not good for your business. Weren’t you, like, a bean counter or something like that?”

  “Yes, something like that.”

  I lean down to kiss the baby on his head. I feel his daddy’s lips brush against my head. My hair stands up on my arms, and a chill runs down my spine. I don’t feel fear, I feel something I never thought I would feel again—desire. His free hand reaches around me as he opens the back door. I leave the only two men who have softened my heart in months. One is a shameless womanizer, and the other is his father.

  Chapter Six

  I have been sitting in front of this laptop for three hours. The table is littered with empty wrappers from the box of Nutty Bars I devoured for lunch. Empty soda cans are lined up like targets at the state fair. Maybe ingesting the equivalent of a small child’s weight in sugar wasn’t the wisest choice.

  Looking at my project, I imagine it will take me two to three weeks to straighten their shoddy code out. You would think a company as big as Lone Star would have checked everything out before they published it. I’ve only been working for a few hours, and I can see all sorts of errors.

  This isn’t my favorite type of work. I prefer to code for games, because it doesn’t seem like work. I get to write a bit and try it out. I’ve become quite the gamer. Coding tax software sucks. I imagine it’s probably as boring as being an accountant or tax preparer.

  I get up from my chair and stretch. Bending my body in half, I let my arms dangle to the floor. The blood rushes straight to my head; maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. I right myself and hold on to the table for support as my head stops spinning.

  I’ve decided to allow myself a break. With the remote control in my hand, I relax on the bed and channel surf. I find the Game Show Network and settle in for an hour of Wheel of Fortune. It’s obviously much harder to play in person than when you are sitting in the comfort of your own living room, or in my case a motel room.

  I find myself yelling at the contestant named Mary, whom I would have bet money on that her name was Trish. She doesn’t look like a Mary. It’s too bad we can’t call kids something temporary while they establish a personality. Who thinks to name their kid Stone or Rapture? It’s tough enough to be a kid, but to be a kid and saddled with a name like that, your parents had to be masochists or high when they named you. Thank God Zane named his boy Aaron. I looked up the meaning earlier, and Google said it meant, “Warrior Lion”. That’s a big name for a little boy to fill.

  Frank Zappa named his kids Dweezil, Moon Unit, Diva, and Ahmet. The only one who got a remotely decent name was Ahmet. Maybe he was named before Frank got uber rich and famous. What is it with rich people naming their kids? Names like Ivy Blue and Apple can only come from someone who thinks they are above public opinion. I hope these kids go to private school or have bodyguards to fight the big fights.

  “Can’t you see it’s Social Butterfly Collection?” I scream at the TV. It’s the easiest before and after I’ve ever seen. Mary turns the wheel and lands on $1000. All she needs to do is say, “L,” and she’s racked up $4000 dollars. I hold my breath and wait for her to pick a letter, but the idiot buys a fucking vowel. Who does that? Mary asks for an “A.” Of course, there is only one. Do you think she could’ve been smart enough to pick a vowel that would get her more than one tile turned? Mary chooses her next letter, and hallelujah, she calls out an “L.” The tiles begin to turn, and I am perched on the end of the bed, waiting for her to solve it. When I hear her call out, “Social Butterfly Collection,” I hop off the bed and dance around the room.

  God, I need to get a life. Is this what my life has become, overdosing on junk food and game shows? Maybe I should just cut my losses and buy the cat now.

  I sit down at the office I have set up on the table and get back to work. I leave the TV on for background noise. It doesn’t seem nearly as lonely when there is noise in the room.

  Four hours later, my eyes burn and my stomach begins to growl. Looking at the bedside clock, I realize I haven’t eaten anything but the snacks from earlier. I begin to rummage through my stash of food. I have all kinds of microwaveable things to choose from. There is beef stew, chili, mac and cheese, and my all-time favorite, Beanie Weenies.

  Sadly, none of my options sounds nearly as appealing as BBQ chicken at Zane’s. I should have said yes, but I feel out of my element right now. I have no idea how trustworthy my opinion is, and I’m not sure how I feel about Zane. Everything I thought he was, he isn’t. I was wrong from the beginning.

  I used to believe I was a good judge of character. I trust people until they give me a reason not to, and honestly, I would give them one more chance even if they screwed me. I have to wonder why the bells and warning lights didn’t go off with Tyler? How could I stay married to him for four years and not know things were off?

  We went through the motions of a happy marriage. I suppose I should have known—should have seen the signs. We didn’t make love as often as we should have. Aren’t newlyweds supposed to fuck like rabbits?

  He worked late many nights and hung out with his male friends on the weekends. I was busy establishing myself in the field. Trying to make something with what Tyler referred to as my “Computer Craft”.

  I remember the exact moment I should have recognized something had changed. It was about three weeks after our wedding; I dressed sexily for him. I lay sprawled across the couch when he came in. He glanced at me, tossed his coat at me, and walked into our room. I waited a few minutes, thinking he was toying with me. When he didn’t come back to the living room, I went in search of him. I found him sound asleep in the guest room.

  The fact that he walked past me without lifting an eyebrow should have said something. What hot-blooded man can walk past a nearly naked girl and not respond in any way, except to humiliate her by throwing his jacket over her? It told me he didn’t find me attractive. I spent the evening crying myself to sleep—alone. That’s when he started to sleep in the guest room. I should have said something then, but I made excuses for him. He was tired. He was stressed. He didn’t feel well. He drank too much. What an idiot I was.

  I’ll admit, I’m not a ten, but I would give myself a solid seven to an iffy eight. I’m not fat, but I’m not skinny. I have meat in all the right places. I’ve never had men complain about my body, or my sexual prowess, so when my young husband only wanted sex on Wednesdays, that did something to my self-esteem, and I still haven’t fully recovered.

  Feeling the need to clear my head, I change out of Zane’s clothes and into my own. I grab the room key and head out to take a walk. The sun is sitting lower in the sky, and with that comes a cooler temperature. It could reach 120 degrees during the day and drop down to 40 at night. Tonight, it’s warm with a slight summer breeze.

  I’m on my third lap around the parking lot when I notice the distinctive aroma of BBQ chicken. The scent draws me in like a magnet to metal.

  “Hey,” I call out as I round the corner of the building. “I can smell that chicken from across the street. I had to come over.”

  He swings around with barbecue tongs in his hand, poised to attack. Recognition spreads across his face by way of a smile.

  “You startled me. I wasn’t expecting anyone to sneak up on me.”

  “Well, that’s usually what happens when someone sneaks around to your back yard. I didn’t mean to catch you off guard.” I make my way toward him and peek around his body at his culinary fare.

  “The offer is still open if you want to join me and my little buddy for dinner.” He looks over toward the stroller by the table. I walk over and peek in at the sleeping baby.

  “I was hoping you would say that. I looked at my microwave options, and none of them enticed me.” I look back at Zane and see his mood seems light and caref
ree.

  “Why don’t you watch the chicken, and I will get the fixins from upstairs. Do you want me to bring you a beer?”

  “Are you having one? I don’t want to drink if I’m drinking alone.”

  “I’ll have one with you.” He turns and takes the stairs two at a time. His well-defined calf muscles flex and relax as he runs up the steps. Dressed in cargo shorts, a T-shirt, and boat shoes, he looks like a prep—not a biker.

  I turn around and begin to flip the chicken. I hear his distinctive step coming down the stairs. It’s like a cadence from a drumline. I feel his presence directly behind me. The hiss of the bottle as he twists the cap off whistles in my ear. His hand touches the small of my back, making my body feel weak in the knees. I turn quickly and find my face planted in his chest. I sniff, trying to get a whiff of him before he moves away, but he doesn’t budge. He stays there with his chest in my face. I tilt my head back and look into his eyes. We stand in silence, staring at each other. Breaking the silence, he steps back and holds out a bottle of beer for me.

  “Thanks.”

  I pull the bottle up to my mouth and take a long, slow drink, my eyes never leaving his. The intensity between us is palpable. It’s like there is a fissure of electricity arcing between us.

  His head dips down, and I would swear he was going to kiss me. In that minute, I wasn’t sure if I should let him or move to the side. The decision is made for me when he leans to the side and grabs the tongs.

  “I invited you, so you get to sit and relax. I’ll cook. We are having baked beans, and corn on the cob as well.” He points to the table at the dishes he brought down. “Hand me that foil-wrapped corn, and I’ll slap them on the grill. I coated them in butter, salt, and pepper, and placed a few fresh basil leaves in the packet.”

  “That sounds yummy. So, I’m thinking you like to cook.” I look at the chicken cooking to a perfect crispy golden brown. “How did you become a financial analyst?”

  “I was always good at math and decided to use that, in conjunction with the business management degree I earned. I went to a California college and made some connections through my biker club. When I graduated, I was already working as an analyst. I look at people’s financial records, and I can spot their mistakes very much in the same way you probably can when you’re looking at HTML.”