Low Sided

by A. J. Downey

  I shuddered as if coming awake and looked up the bar where one of the patron’s had his hand raised, beckoning to me before lifting his empty glass.

  I uncrossed and put my arms flat to the bar, gave Sauley one last wide-eyed and mystified look and pushed myself up to standing to stride down to refill the longshoreman’s glass. He wanted to get salty with me about the wait and I just raised an eyebrow at him. His buddies shut him up. They knew the look, the one that said I was about to declare salty boy had enough to drink and it was time for him to move on.

  Longshoremen were assholes, and I’d learned pretty quick, they wouldn’t respect you unless you had no fucks to give about it and threw their shit right back at ‘em. Plus, with the recent revelation from the biker prospect down the bar, I really wasn’t in the mood. I was still honestly reeling a bit.

  True to his word, Sauley hung around until after closing to walk me home. He even pitched in a bit and helped me close up. Once outside, I took a deep, refreshing breath of clean air.

  “So, about Mace…” he said and that deep pang of resentment mixed with anger hit me dead center of the chest again, like a physical blow.

  I shrugged one shoulder and wouldn’t look at Sauley as I asked, “What about him?”

  “He have any way to redeem himself?” he asked.

  I looked up the street, away from the prospect, and sighed out, saying honestly, “I don’t know. He violated my trust in a huge way. Went behind my back…” I turned back to Sauley and told the truth. “I just don’t know.”

  He searched my face and nodded slowly and asked, turning to set the pace back to my place at a sedate and leisurely walk, “Even though he did it to protect you?”

  “I don’t know if that holds water, to be honest,” I said.

  “How’s that?”

  I buried my hands into the pockets of my felt asymmetrical and fairy-like hoodie and shrugged.

  “He violates my trust and I’m supposed to trust that his intentions were pure simply because he says so?” I asked.

  Sauley nodded and said, “Yeah, I can see how that cyclical thinking would be enough to drive you nuts… but you know Mace. You think he’s honestly lying about something like that?”

  “I don’t know,” I murmured. “That’s what kills me. How am I supposed to believe?”

  “And around and around she goes,” he muttered under his breath. I smiled and laughed a little at that, knocking my shoulder into his.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not sure what other direction to go in.” I looked over at him and cocked my head slightly. “You confuse me,” I confessed. “Not just you, but all of you.”

  “How’s that?” he asked.

  “Just an hour or so ago, you tell me you’re crushing on me, and here you are now, and it sounds like you’re actually rooting for me and Mace to get back together.”

  He smiled, bowed his head and nodded, letting it bounce on his neck a little before saying, “It’s funny, sometimes, how loyalty works.”

  “To Mace or to the club?” I asked quietly.

  “To both in this case, I guess.”

  I stopped and looked at him and he stopped too.

  “You said he got his ass kicked because of me,” I said and shifted on my feet uncomfortably.

  Sauley shook his head.

  “No, Mace got his ass kicked because of Mace and his own decisions and as far as ass kicking goes? It wasn’t much of one. Not like the one that brought you two together.” I felt the tension leave my shoulders as relief flooded my veins.

  “He fucked up, he owned it, he took his licks – end of story on that.”

  “What did he do?” I asked.

  Sauley shook his head. “That’s club business, and the less you know the better.” He raised his hand to stop me as I drew a breath to protest.

  “It’s not that we don’t trust our women – far from it. It’s that we love you, and part of loving you means keeping you in the dark about certain things to protect you. At least that’s the way I’ve always understood it.”

  “A bunch of white knights falling on your swords?” I asked.

  He shrugged, and it wasn’t quite as gallic as Major’s had been the night before, but it was equally as infuriating.

  “Hey,” he called as I went to spin on my heel and make my way up the sidewalk without him. I paused and looked back over my shoulder.

  “Believe me, I get it,” he said. “The need to have or be in some kind of control of your own destiny. How everything feels like it’s spinning out of control around you and how you wish you could grab onto just anything to make the world fall back into place.”

  I startled slightly because he was right, I mean, it was like he knew… I didn’t like things going on behind my back. I wanted to know everything and, I mean, could you blame me? Lack of control meant that I couldn’t and wouldn’t feel safe. I had for a time when I was with Mace and then he had to go and pull the rug out from underneath me – had to go behind my back.

  I swallowed hard and stared at Sauley.

  “We’re on your side, Raven. You helped one of us and we’re here and want to help you. You just have to trust us on certain things and one of those things is that we’re moving the same direction as you. Toward freedom and our own type of security and safety for those we love.”

  “By doing dangerous and unsafe things?” I asked. “Isn’t that, like, an oxymoron or something?”

  He shrugged again and said, “I think it’s more like a paradox, but it’s no less true. We do things our way. Yes, sometimes our way isn’t perfect or legal by citizen standards but by the same token, you think anyone is going to fuck with us or you? By default, you know how much of a fucking bad idea that would be. With us, you couldn’t be safer and thus you can’t know all the things, or you would be unsafe. Irritating, I’m sure, but no less true.”

  “You’re making me tired and you’re making my head hurt,” I complained finally, and he chuckled.

  He came over to me and touched my face. I froze like a deer in the headlights.

  “Mace is lucky,” he said. “I’m glad you two found each other.”

  “That’s… charitable of you,” I concluded after a long pause to find the words. I spoke carefully and Sauley grinned, looking so much younger, a man in his twenties with still so much ahead of him. It made my heart hurt for a moment for the girl I was. Before Max. Before all the pain and the heartache. For the girl who thought she’d been miserable and alone who didn’t know what true misery was… not yet.

  I looked up at Sauley in that moment, holding my breath, terrified he was going to do something stupid like kiss me, and half self-destructively wanting him to because the truth was, I was scared. I didn’t think I deserved Mace, or this unexpected tribe of men and women that he was surrounded with who were willing to accept me warts and all. The truth was, for as much as society looked down on them, I still felt they were too good for the likes of me.

  There was a certain amount of comfort in the sadness and melancholy of my aloneness.

  “You deserve good things, Raven. You and Mace both, and I see what kind of peace you two bring to each other. Sure, he pulled a dumbass move, and if I were any less devoted to the club, I would probably blow my shot all to hell and gone and kissed you right now because I wish so hard to find someone like you.”

  “Like me?” I echoed, confused.

  “Yeah,” he said breaking into a grin and dropping his hand. “You’re wonderful.”

  I shook my head, speechless, and he put an arm around me, almost brotherly, and walked me the rest of the way home.

  “Do me a favor,” he called as I unlatched the stairwell door. I looked back over my shoulder and a flash of guilt crossed his face.

  “Keep this conversation between you and me?” I asked softly, and he cracked a smile.

  “Yeah, if you would, please.”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t know if I can ever trust Mace again,” I said and swallowed hard. Saul
ey nodded.

  “I get it. Trust is in short supply, but Raven?” I looked up. “He would never do anything to hurt you. Me either. Not on purpose… and truthfully? We wish a motherfucker would try.”

  He looked scary then, so why did it warm me to my toes?

  “Goodnight, Sauley. Thanks for walking me home.”

  “Anytime, gorgeous. Anytime.”

  I shut the door behind me and ascended the stairs, my mind reeling. I had a lot to think about.

  23

  Mace…

  “She good?” I asked, straightening up at the bar. Sauley opened his mouth and looking behind me, closed it.

  “Off you fuck, Prospect,” Maverick declared, and I turned to our president a little irritated.

  “She’s good.” Sauley stood up a little straighter and put me out of my misery, stepping back out the front door of the club. Mav took a stool next to mine and raised eyebrows at Ms. Momma Kat. She rolled her eyes, put a beer in front of him and fucked off, too.

  Mav turned to me and my cheekbone gave a throbbing ache from the punch Glass had laid my hungover ass out with a few nights before.

  “We ain’t really talked about it yet. You paid your price and all, and this conversation ain’t about that… at least not really, so put your hackles down, bro.”

  I eased myself out of my unintentionally ready stance, perched on my own barstool and asked Mav, “What the fuck you talkin’ about?”

  “What you did for your woman, not a one of us who has one blames you for going there. Still, going there leaves a stain on the soul. How you doing with that?”

  “Fine,” I answered, clipped.

  “You keep anything of this fool’s?” he asked.

  I pursed my lips and got into the small pocket in the front of my jacket meant for a lighter or pocket change or whatever. I slid the gaudy gold cross on its chain down the bar a few inches and Mav looked at it. He swore in what I think was Russian and shook his head.

  “A real Chad motherfucker, huh?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Yeah.”

  “Ask you why you kept it?”

  “To give to Raven at some point… when the time was right. So she could know she didn’t have to be afraid anymore.”

  Mav nodded.

  “You trust this woman enough to hand her the keys to the kingdom like that? To put your fate in her hands?” he asked, turning the cross in the light.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Already trusted her with my life once,” I reminded him.

  He grinned, shook his head, and said, “This is a mite different, bro.” I felt my expression darken with the seriousness of it and nodded.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “There a reason you didn’t hand it to her right after the deed was done?” he asked.

  “We all got our trust issues, I guess,” I said coolly.

  He nodded slowly, absorbing what I said.

  “Now’s not exactly the right time,” I said, turning to face the wall of liquor bottles behind the bar and taking a pull off my beer. “She’s pissed at me, I fucked up… and I don’t know that there’s any fixing it.”

  Maverick sighed and pocketed the cross. I didn’t say anything. I trusted Mav with my life. He was a crafty bastard, sure, but we weren’t in any way crossways with each other. I had no plans or designs to cross him, either. If he felt better hanging onto it, then let him.

  Besides, I felt my shit was precarious enough with the club. I’d made a bad decision keeping Mav out of the loop, but I didn’t regret it – plausible deniability and all of that. I think he knew it, too. Otherwise, the beatdown would have been Fen or Dump Truck and I’d be doing a hell of a lot worse than a sucker punch when I was hungover.

  “You’re a good man,” Mav declared.

  “Thanks for saying so,” I said, and he looked over at me sharply. I looked back, and he raised an eyebrow like he took offense at my disagreeing with his notion.

  “Fine, then I take it back motherfucker.”

  I laughed, and the mood lightened, the heaviness dissipating.

  “Prospect!” Maverick bellowed, and we laughed as something banged outside and Sauley cursed. He came in the door coughing, half a second later the smell of some of Major’s dank ass weed wafting in behind him.

  “Yes, sir,” he spat out between coughs and Mav raised an eyebrow.

  “Put Mace out of his misery,” Maverick said. “Tell him how things went with his girl.”

  Sauley slid up onto the stool on the other side of me, and I turned my head raising my eyebrows. The kid blushed faintly, and I wasn’t surprised he harbored a crush. It was hard not to. Raven was beautiful, smart, funny, kind, all the things you could want in a woman, her only flaw, her deeply held insecurities, which I found beautiful too. She was this wounded bird and it was hard to fucking resist, the combination intoxicating.

  She looked at you and you felt every inch the man you were supposed to be. Her veneration a palpable thing, those stars in her eyes as I moved inside her. I felt every inch a god amongst men when she looked at me like that, and I knew it was just a part of her. That while I was special, she looked at anybody and they felt seen, you know?

  She was oblivious to it, and it lent to her charm.

  “All’s not lost, bro. She’s still just as nuts for you as she’s ever been. She’s just hurt. Her trust has been broken, but I don’t really think it’s as bad as all of that, you know?”

  “No, he don’t know, which is why he sent you to make sure she was good,” Mav said and he made the remark slightly cutting. I knew he was just razzing the prospect, but the look on Sauley’s face said he wasn’t so sure. Good. He needed to keep on his toes if he was going to hack it in this life.

  “She still pissed?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah.” He nodded. “She’s got a lot on her mind. She’s a smart cookie, and I think part of her deal is she’s worried this life ain’t for her.”

  Mav laughed at that. “The fuck it isn’t. She handled the situation with Mace like a fuckin’ pro. Like she was born to this life.”

  “She doubts herself too much,” I agreed.

  “I’m right there with you on that one,” Sauley said, and I cocked an eyebrow.

  He ducked his head. “Sorry. Just my observation. I know you didn’t ask for it and it doesn’t count for shit.”

  “No, it does,” I said. “Just wondering, did I make a mistake sending you over there so much?”

  He shook his head and looked dead-ass serious when he said, “No way, bro. I like Raven but consider her the little sister that I never had.”

  “She’s older than you, dipshit,” Maverick said, and I laughed a little.

  “It’s cool, I get your drift, Sauley.”

  He nodded and a silent understanding passed between us. He loved her. Maybe like I did, maybe not, but he knew to stay in his lane.

  I nodded back once and took another drink of my beer.

  “I told her you got your ass kicked,” Sauley said, and I frowned.

  “Too bad Major’s already got the name,” Maverick muttered. “If he didn’t, you’d be the club’s major pain in the ass for that alone.”

  “Major sure lives up to that road name,” I agreed. “But Sauley here?” I shook my head. “I ain’t mad, bro, just tell me, what’d she do?” I focused my attention full on Sauley.

  “Asked if you were alright,” Sauley answered. Maverick clapped me on the back.

  “You two lovebirds are gonna be fine,” he declared, and I felt a knot in the middle of my chest loosen up some.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, relieved. “You’re probably right.”

  “Just give it some time,” Mav said, and I nodded.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, and we switched topics to bike mods and the next big ride. I knew Mav, though… the wheels in his head were turning. I just didn’t know what road they were on, if they were chewing up asphalt or dirt, or where he was headed. Still, Mav was always the man with a pla
n, and he hadn’t let any of us down yet.

  24

  Raven…

  True to his word, Mace left me be. He never showed up himself, and he didn’t push, but he still didn’t let me walk home alone at night from Shoreman’s. Someone was always there at the end of my shift and it wasn’t always Sauley. Sometimes it was Major. Sometimes it was Nine or Squatch. Once it was Tic-Tac who bitched the entire time about having to do a prospect’s job and fuck all to hurry my ass up so he could get back to his life. Tic, as they called him, was a real asshole. I was glad when he only showed up the once.

  Tonight, it was the giant of a man leaning heavily on his cane. The one they called Dump Truck. He was ruggedly handsome, though his dark eyes tended to bore through yours uncomfortably, as though he was reading your soul like a book and he didn’t always find what he’d read pleasing. I felt two inches tall under his gaze and wondered how his little bird managed to do it. Be with him, I mean. They couldn’t have seemed more opposite but at the same time, they were thick as thieves. Anytime they were near each other it was like they inhabited their own parallel universe – one adjacent to ours where we could see in, but they couldn’t see anything but the other.

  It was sweet watching them together at the party two weeks ago, and I wondered if Mace and I could have been like that given enough time.

  “What’ll you have?” I asked as he settled his considerable bulk onto the barstool across from me, holding the thigh on his bad leg as he sighed out in almost relief. Now when I say bulk I didn’t mean fat. Dump Truck was certainly not fat, not in the slightest. He was all muscle, with fists like cinder blocks. I would hate to be on the receiving end of one.

  His smile, hidden in his dark beard, transformed his face, everything settling into gentle smile lines as he said, “Just a Coke if you got it.”

  “You got it,” I said. “On the house.”

  “Thank you kindly,” he said with a wink and my apprehension at his domineering presence receded.

  I got him his soda and moved on to do some general bar chores before I started to close up. No one was in here tonight. It was the middle of the week and quiet for a change.