Biker Chicks: An Anthology of Hot MC Romance (31 page)

“You want to patch in,” I said.

“I do.”

There was so much I didn’t know about him, so much he wouldn’t say...and from what I’d seen of the outlaw world, most of it was stuff I’d never be told no matter how long I stayed with him or how close we became, even if I married him and got “PROPERTY OF HANNIBAL” tattooed on my throat. I’d been telling myself I’d get used to it. I wanted to, but even the warm circle of his arms couldn’t keep me from the truth.

I didn’t know how.

I sat alone in my kitchen, a pile of used tissues on the table in front of me. I wiped my nose with a fresh one, feeling a sting as it dragged across raw redness. My chest hurt from crying, but I couldn’t stop. It had been four hours since I’d gotten home, four hours since the tears had started. Four hours since I’d told Gabriel I couldn’t be with him anymore.

It had been two weeks since the gang kids had attacked me, and in that time all I could think about was how and when to do the deed. It had turned our time together from a happy thing into an awkward thing, and finally he’d called me on it. The scene played in my head like a film, one with an ending I didn’t like.

“Lys,” he’d said, “what’s in your head?”

“What do you mean?”

“You been different ever since you got jumped,” he’d said. “Distant, like.”

“It scared me.”

“In the life we got a saying,” he’d said. “Any one you walk away from still breathing – ”

“No, Gabriel.” I’d struggled with my next words. “No more tough-guy talk. I can’t do it. I just...can’t.”

There had been a long silence.

“You’re fixing to leave me,” he’d said softly. “Ain’t you.”

The words hadn’t come. I’d only nodded.

Another long silence had passed.

“Thought so,” he’d said. His face had been blank, remote.
Please cry,
I’d thought.
Yell at me. Say something mean.
I’d wanted him to do something, anything
,
to show me that it mattered to him, that my leaving hurt. I’d opened my mouth to yell at him...and then I’d realized something that had made it all worse. He hadn’t cried or yelled or acted hurt because he knew it already hurt
me.
So he’d done what he’d always done when the world was too much for me to handle; he’d been my rock.

I’d sucked it up and done the same thing. I hadn’t cried and I hadn’t yelled. I was proud of myself for that.

“Will you miss me?”

“Would you miss your arm, somebody done went and cut it off?” His accent had been thick, thicker than it usually was. It had hurt him to watch me go. I’d seen it and heard it in the small things.

More tears came out as I remembered what he’d said when I’d asked him why.

He’d sighed. “In the life, I gotta be wary all the damn time. Tough and careful and all that shit. ‘Fore you came along, it was either that or be by myself. When you’re here, I get to relax and be around somebody.”

“...and that’s worth as much your arm?”

He’d nodded.

“I don’t understand.”

“Might as well ask why diamonds are worth so much.”

Peace. That was what I’d given him. It seemed so small, and maybe in my world it was, just like the respect he’d shown me was such a basic part of his.

“I don’t want this,” I’d told him.

“You wanna be an old lady?”

I’d shaken my head.

“Then there ain’t no other way,” he’d said

“Why?”

“What we got’s built on lookin’ each other in the eye, Lys. I go your way or you go mine, somebody’s givin’ something they ain’t getting back. Means we lose it, the thing that makes us
us.”
He’d paused, struggling with his words. “If that happens, what the fuck is the point?”

There hadn’t been anything I could say to that.

I’d collected the few belongings I’d kept at his place: spare clothes and some feminine products. I’d paused at the framed picture he’d hung on the wall, the one I’d taken on the day he’d taught me to ride.

“Leave it,” he’d said.

He’d walked with me to the bus stop, stood in silence while we waited for it to come. I’d wanted to tell him I’d stay in touch, but I knew that wouldn’t work. I knew me; I’d miss his touch and I’d want to go back...but the reasons I was leaving would still be there, and it would hurt us both all over again.

When the bus had pulled up, I’d turned to him, wanting to say something, but everything I could think to say had already been said.

“Piece of advice?”

I’d nodded.

“The world takes what it takes,” he’d told me. “It’s something you learn on the wrong side of the tracks.” He’d touched my cheek. “But there’s what it takes, and there’s what you
let
it take.” A smile. “World’s taking you away, and I can’t do nothin’ about that. But it don’t get to take the good times. Those are mine, and I mean to keep ‘em.”

“Oh Gabriel...” I’d almost lost it right then. I’d wanted to. But if he could keep it together, so could I.

“You’ll miss your bus,” he’d said.

As it had pulled away I’d pressed my nose to the glass and watched him stand on the curb and wave, just like I’d watched the bikers in high school. Then the bus turned a corner and he was out of sight.

I wiped at my face again, added another tissue to the pile. A carton of ice cream sat warming on the table next to the pile of tissues. I hadn’t opened it, but I hadn’t put it back, either. I stared at the ice cream and it stared back at me.

It was two am.

Being with Gabriel I’d tried to keep my issues in check, not stress-eat and freak out over little stuff; it had still happened, but not as much and I’d been getting better. The better I got, the better I felt. It had been something I’d done. He’d been the reason, not the mechanism.

I’d also looked up Gabriel’s right-hand tattoo; another bible verse, this time from Corinthians.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child. When I became a man I put aside the love of childish things.

I picked up the ice cream and put it back in the freezer.

I rooted around in my kitchen until I found an empty jar, and set it on my desk. The change from my purse and pockets went into it along with a few crumpled bills I didn’t know had been in there. My junk food budget officially had a new home. Next I opened my laptop, fired up Mozilla and typed “HARLEY-DAVIDSON DEALERSHIPS SEATTLE” into the search bar. I wanted to know how much I needed to save.

Somewhere in Montana

June 2015

“I have to say, that’s a sweet bike,” said the clerk as I set a bottle of water on his counter. He was somewhere in his twenties, a tanned, rope-muscled young cowboy.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Who lets you ride it?”

“I do.” I handed him my money.

“Huh?”

I grinned. “She’s mine.”

“Oh.”

“Have a nice day,” I told him, walking away before he could say anything. I could tell he wanted to flirt, but I wasn’t having any. First he’d used the round mirrors to stare at my butt; strike one. Then he’d stared at my breasts when I’d been at the register; strike two. Then he’d assumed Scarlet belonged to a guy; strike three.

You’re out. Thanks for playing.

I cracked the bottle of water, leaning on Scarlet’s seat. She was a 2012 Dyna Glide Sport, the bike Jax Teller had ridden in
Sons of Anarchy
except a different year and blood red instead of black, but with the same T-bars. I’d done the bars myself, six months back; it had been my first real bit of wrenching. Working in the office for a motorcycle shop wasn’t exactly the best use for a psychology degree, but I’d picked up a fair bit on how to do modifications, plus I got an employee discount. Motorcycles were more expensive than a drug habit. Certainly more expensive than the junk food I’d quit.

I had been a size 15 in college; I was a size 12 at present. The weight loss was just a byproduct of learning to only eat when I was hungry. When I was stressed or depressed, I got on my bike and rode; something about the cocoon of wind and noise and the focus I needed to have to prevent a crash calmed me down. Being smaller didn’t matter so much but beating an addiction did. I still had the urge, I just didn’t let it rule me.

As I finished my water my phone chimed. I dug it out of my pocket; sure enough, it was a text from mom.
U OKAY??
I sighed.

Yes mom I’m fine,
I typed.

My mother had yet to let up on me about riding, and I was pretty sure she never would. “You’ll kill yourself on that thing,” she’d said, every holiday I’d gone home for.

Alright just checking you be carefull!!!

Always am, mom.
I cleared the text screen. My background was a picture I cherished; me and Gabriel, the day I’d first ridden. I kept it for luck, and for the memories. It had taken me three years to save up Scarlet’s down payment, another two to pay off the loan. I’d worked two part-time jobs to do it; juggling that plus keeping my grades okay had taken up all my time. It had been a good way to get over him. I still missed what we’d shared, but it was no longer in a way that hurt. I was still single, but that didn’t hurt, either.

I had a standard, set by the one man who’d loved me back. It was a simple standard. A guy had to make me feel like somebody, or I wasn’t interested.
Thank you,
I thought at the picture.
Thanks for everything.

It had been almost seven years since I’d last seen Gabriel. Not for the first time, I wondered where he was, how he was. He’d been thirty two when I’d met him, and would be nearing forty. I’d done the occasional Internet search, checking for obituaries, arrests. The one-percenter life was a risky life. I never found anything though, and I wasn’t surprised; Gabriel Stark was a guy who knew how to take care of himself.

I tucked my phone back in my Kevlar riding jacket, “FTW” stitched over the pocket. Our story had an imperfect ending, but I’d made my peace with that as well.

We lived in an imperfect world.

Overhead the sky was crystal clear, the air dry as a bone and just warm enough to make protective gear a little uncomfortable. According to the maps, I was about to hit a patch of interstate where the police didn’t bother with speed limits. It was why I’d come out this way. Gabriel’s deep southern drawl swam out of my memories.
Every rider’s got to do it,
he’d told me once.
Drop the hammer all the way, find out what ‘fast’ really means.

A half-hour down the highway, that’s just what I did.

Seventy, eighty, ninety miles an hour; I thumbed through the gears, bent as low over the tank as I could get, Scarlet’s V-Twin and the roar of the slipstream fighting to drown each other out.
More,
I thought, twisting the throttle down harder. Riding was a lot like sex; harder, faster, more. In some ways it was better.

I couldn’t have told anyone how fast ‘fast’ was in miles per hour, for at anything over a hundred I had no spare attention for anything but the road in front of me. That was the whole point.

Depression, anxiety and the urge to eat them all away; I still had those problems and I always would. But screaming down the highway on a knife’s edge of danger they fell by the wayside, unable to keep pace with the magical moment where the thrill of speed outran the fear of death.

My grin was a wide one.
Try and catch me,
I screamed at the world.
Catch me
if you can.