Dead Men Motorcycle Club (10 page)

The door opened and Cash stepped through it looking somber. Behind him was a tall man with blonde hair. He was wearing a leather jacket, but not the kind that the Dead Men wore. This was the kind of jacket you buy in Manhattan or Hollywood or somewhere in Europe. It was dyed red and black and even if the rest of him hadn't been a clue, you could peg him as being rich with one look at. Of course, he wasn't representing himself differently with the rest of his attire. He wore a tailored shirt beneath the jacket and a pair of expensive shoes that seemed chosen to perfectly complement his pants. His hair was styled and recently cut. His skin was clear and free from scars and decoration. Aside from the material that made up his jacket, he was as out of place in the Dead Men Motorcycle Club as anyone could be.

All conversation quieted as they entered the room. I smiled inwardly as I watched the members of the club turn their attention to the newcomer. It was that kind of machine-like synchronicity that gave me such a thrill when I found it. To his credit, the new guy didn't seem to be nervous. He wasn't walking into a clubhouse full of bikers the way most people in expensive shirts would. Even the people who passed as wealthy in San Viero were usually a little uncomfortable in a place like this. There was more to the young
Donnovan than met the eye - that much was certain.

"Everybody," Cash said, stepping into the middle of the room, "this is Alexander Donnovan." There were only a few murmured greetings, but Alexander seemed unflappable.

He stepped next to Cash and spoke as though he'd received a standing ovation upon entering. I recognized immediately that it was hubris that was driving these behaviors. He
knew the club's reaction to his arrival was less than energetic. He also knew that the best way to generate that kind of energy is to act like it already exists.

"Glad to be here," he said, "I've heard good things about the Dead Men. I'm sure we're going to do great things together.
Now - how about a drink?"

I frowned at that. It was just a drink, but I knew that somewhere deep inside, Cash was feeling chagrined about his earlier refusal to share a drink with me. Apparently Alexander was more interested in relaxing than he was doing sober business. I didn't like to see my man being proven wrong. Even as he was walking up to the bar - and without any real reason for the impression - I already found myself disliking Alexander. He was slick and polished in all the ways Cash wasn't, but it wasn't that that turned me off of him. It was the threat his borrowed authority presented to Cash. They say power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, but I was perfectly happy being the girlfriend of the club president and I didn't want anything to upset the balance we'd achieved.

Alexander made his way to the bar where he pulled out a stool and sat, as comfortable as though this were the place he spent all of his days and nights. I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous at the way he so seamlessly adapted to the new environment. It had taken me three months and I still felt uneasy here in the clubhouse. I was still standing behind the bar when he sat down, which made me the de-facto bartender.

“Can I get a scotch and soda?” he asked. I shrugged and reached for the bottles. I didn’t mind fetching his drink for him, and it gave me a chance to look at him more closely in any case. Up close I could tell that he’d shaven recently. It was nearly nine o’clock at night, but there wasn’t a single trace of stubble on his face. I had to remind myself that men who put that kind of attention into their appearance still existed in this world. Even Cash, who was about as styled as any of the Dead Men got to be, had a layer of razor-sharp stubble coating his jaw at this hour.

I set the drink down in front of him as Cash stepped to the side of the bar, where he put his hands down. I reached for the refrigerator door and got him a beer, just the kind I knew he liked. I figured a bit of familiarity and the knowledge that I knew him that well would go a long way.

“Are you the bartender around here?” Alexander asked as I handed Cash the beer.

Cash took my hand and, before I could say anything, told the young visitor, “Emma is our best mechanic.” As he said it, he stroked my hand softly. I knew it wasn’t for my benefit, but rather as a show to Alexander, telling him that I was spoken for. I didn’t particularly care for having Cash speak on my behalf, and the jealous side of him was something I’d hoped to avoid. Around the clubhouse, there was no use for behavior like that. Not even Vickers would think to make a move on me. Every one of the Dead Men knew how much Cash and I meant to one another. They were just happy we were happy.

Maybe it was being out of practice that did it, or maybe Cash really did have a jealous side that I’d never guessed at. In either case, he perched over me like a hawk for the rest of the evening. Every stray glance that Alexander paid me seemed to be a stab for Cash to intercept and deflect. Time after time, Alexander would ask simple, friendly questions to either of us about the club, the clubhouse and the garage. And every time, Cash would deflect it and try to steer the conversation back to business. By the time half an hour had passed, I was getting bored of being rescued from nothing in particular.

The club’s business was always something I left to Cash. I could help him deal with the consequences of his actions and the actions of others, but as to offering advice, I was usually silent. There were old grudges that I didn’t know anything about and even after three months, the capabilities of the members of the Dead Men were often surprising to me. Even so, I couldn’t help but feel for Cash as he was pressed into this conversation with Alexander
Donnovan. The outsider seemed to want nothing to do with the business at hand, preferring to drink away the evening discussing things of no consequence whatsoever. The dynamic man I’d devoted so much of my life to over the past months seemed paralyzed by the presence of an outsider. It couldn’t last forever, though. Eventually Cash would crack and would stark demanding things from Alexander. I didn’t want to see that happen, but I couldn’t think of a way to repair the situation.

Finally, I realized the best course of action was just to excuse myself. Cash’s sudden change of demeanor and Alexander’s vague flirtations were both becoming tired and I hoped that by removing myself from the equation, maybe it would turn them both from the paths they seemed so intent on following.

“I’m going to go wrap some things up in the garage,” I told them.

“Okay,” Cash said, touching my hand once more, “I’ll be out to see you in a while.”

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Emma,” Alexander told me, smiling. I had to admit that his fine appearance was pleasing to me. I’d been surrounded by men who were tough as nails and looked like they had hammered a few in with their faces, most of the time. Even Cash showed signs of the time he’d spent on the road. Alexander might be a stranger and he might be dripping with false compliments at every turn, but he was still a breath of fresh air.

I gave Cash a quick kiss on the cheek and headed out to the garage. Some time spent working on a car or bike would help me, I was sure. Business at the garage had been slow lately, but if nothing else I could tinker with my bike. I’d owned it for only a couple weeks at that point, and I was still spending a lot of time disassembling it and reassembling it, trying to memorize every last piece. When it comes to machines or relationships, I have a similar method I suppose. I take things apart. I study them. I put them back together. The way I see it, the only way to understand how you can make something work better is to understand the importance of all of the parts. With a car it could be any one of a hundred different hunks of specialized metal. With a relationship, it was things like how you acted around one another in public or how often you thanked each other. The theory was the same for both. If it isn’t working – replace it.

Tubbs was in the garage when I got there, going over a checklist on the Jeep we’d patched up earlier in the day. He was the kind of guy who liked to triple-check things before giving them back to the customer. He never liked to sign his name to inferior work and I understood the reasoning. A mechanic, like a motorcycle club, lives and dies on its reputation. If you do a bad job, the stain of it is going to haunt you forever – or at least until the unhappy customer leaves town.

“Hey, Emma,” he said when he noticed me. He set the clipboard down beside him. “How are things inside?” Tubbs didn’t spend a lot of time in the clubhouse. He preferred the garage and I couldn’t blame him. If it wasn’t for my relationship with Cash, I’d probably fraternize with others as little as possible. There was something desperately sad about that. Here I was, thousands of miles away from where I grew up, and it was only this one relationship that was holding me in the town in a lot of ways. Without Cash, this job was just a job. Without the Dead Men, San Viero was just another town. Was I really ready to allow one person to be such an important part of my life? Was I ready to devote myself to a town based on the motorcycle club that happened to make its home there? These were questions that I hadn’t spent nearly enough time thinking about. I’d been caught in the whirlwind romance I shared with Cash and had let basic questions about whether I was happy slide.

“It’s fine,” I told him, “Cash is talking with that Donnovan
guy, the young one.”

“He seem alright?”

“He’s alright,” I said honestly, “He doesn’t seem quite ready to get to work and I can tell its driving Cash up the wall. You know him – small talk isn’t exactly his specialty.”

Tubbs nodded and I nearly laughed. I had forgotten who I was talking to here. Small talk might not have been Cash’s specialty, but it was practically anathema to Tubbs. Even if he and I spent hours working on an engine together, there were usually less than fifty words exchanged between us. That’s great when you’re working together because it means you don’t have to worry about miscommunication. On the other hand, it doesn’t give you the best sounding board when you want to talk about your boyfriend. Tubbs might be a good friend, but he wasn’t exactly a font of useful advice.

I sat down next to my bike, which was parked inside the garage. I was as close to being a member of the Dead Men as you could be without patching in, but I still felt strange about parking it in the row next to their bikes. I was a mechanic and my bike belonged in the garage. I ran my hand across the fender and thought about what had brought me to this point. I’d sold my Charger – the car that had brought me through high school and halfway across the country – to buy this bike.
Had that all been a mistake?
The excitement of the moment had grabbed me and I took a chance. Now I had a motorcycle that I could call my own, but was it worth it?

I was just getting around to connecting my feelings about the bike to my feelings about the club as a whole when I heard the door to the clubhouse open. Cash and Alexander stepped through. I stood up and walked over to where they were.

“That was fast,” I said. It had only been a few minutes since I left them sitting at the bar together.

“Well,” Cash said, “There’s work to be done.” I was glad that he’d finally gotten through to Alexander on that point, but his behavior from earlier still kept me cool on him at that moment. I didn’t need his rescuing from a few harmless flirtations and I needed him to know that I’d been fine on my own. I always was before.

“Me and a few of the guys are going to go out,” Cash explained, “Taylor’s got a worksite over north of the city and we’re going to have a little fun.”

I nodded along, knowing full well what “a little fun” meant. The job with
Donnovan
was far from legal. I don’t think it was remotely close to being ethical, either. It was one rich man working against another rich man with the muscle of a motorcycle gang to back him up. Cash was alright with being that muscle, mostly because he didn’t care which of the two rich men had the political power in San Viero, and he was glad to just get a piece of the pie. I could respect that. If two people were going to throw money around deciding which of them was in charge, it made sense to get a bit of the money in the process. “A little fun” was just the kind of business the Dead Men were in, after all.

“Alexander’s going to stay here,” Cash told me, and I could hear the grudge in his voice. He wasn’t happy to leave the man here with me, but there was no way he was bringing him on the job, either. Not only did he want the freedom to do his job the way he liked it done, but Alexander was about as far from a biker as you could get.

“Okay,” I told him, “I’ll make sure he stays out of trouble.” I wasn’t sure what I meant by it. Half of me wanted to reassure Cash that I’d keep an eye on Alexander. The other half of me wanted to torment him with thoughts of the two of us spending time together. The over protectiveness he’d shown in the clubhouse was the kind of thing I needed to head off quickly. If I let him walk over me like that all the time, I’d never get a moment alone with a stranger, innocent or not.

“Tubbs,” Cash called out to the quiet mechanic on the other side of the garage, “Get your shit, you’re riding with us.” I was a little surprised at that. Tubbs was a member, of course, but everyone knew he spent most of his time working on bikes rather than riding. I guess Cash just wanted to make sure he wasn’t going soft. Tubbs seemed like such a sweet guy most of the time. It was easy to forget that he was one of the Dead Men. He had committed acts of violence along with the rest of them. When the call went out, he answered it, no matter the job.

I stepped towards Cash and put my arms around him, leaning in for a real kiss. He kissed me back but I could feel the tension in his arms. I wanted to stick it to him a little, but I still cared for him more than anything. Acting on a piece of advice Karen had given me, I never let him ride off without a kiss. “You have to remind him what he’s coming home to,” she had told me. She was right, of course. I could be angry with him, but I wanted him coming home to me. He kissed me back and I felt a little of the tension slide away from his body – though not all of it.