Ridin' Dirty: An Outlaw Author Anthology (OAMC Book 1) (32 page)

Karmen’s life has been anything but easy. After growing up without anyone who loved her, she finally has the simple, quiet life she’s always wanted.

At least, it was simple until she gave into Nickel, a member of the local MC, who had been chasing her for months. Will Nickel be everything Karmen has wanted, or will her past come back to haunt her, ruining everything?

Chapter one

Karmen

I couldn’t find a box big enough to fit him in.

Well, that makes me sound like a murderer or something. Nickel, the man I can’t find a box big enough for, is still very much alive, I assure you. I should probably go back a little bit and explain.

My father went to jail when I was thirteen, and I can’t remember my mother. She left before I could even have a memory of her. He always told me we were better off without her. Things were rough for us, but we always had each other. Well, I had my dad. My dad had me and beer. I can’t remember a time I didn’t smell beer on his breath.

I went to my first day of preschool and asked the teacher why her breath didn’t smell like my dad. That ended up with my dad in the principal’s office for an hour and me crying the whole way home while my dad yelled at me. That was the last time I ever mentioned my dad’s drinking to anyone. I was a quick learner and caught on quick. One mess up, and I never made the same mistake again.

The night my dad had gone to jail, I was at home like normal while he was out at the bar three miles down the road. He regularly walked to the bar and stumbled home, but that night there was a severe storm predicted to blow in, so he decided he would take the truck. That decision had changed my life and made me see life in a whole new light.

I was sprawled out on the living room floor, watching TV, when there was a loud pounding on the front door, and I figured it was my dad. It was normal for him to forget his keys and pound on the door to get inside.

I opened the door to two police officers, with my grandma Vivian standing behind them. I only saw my grandma at Christmas. I knew the second I saw her, something was not right.

It seemed that my father had decided to call it a night after drinking almost a twenty-four pack of beer and tried to drive home. In that three-mile drive home that had no turns or curves on it, my father had managed to hit a soccer mom in her minivan with her three children in the back. Only one child survived.

As the police told me that I had to go with my Grandma until they figured something out, my Grandma stood behind them, arms crossed over her chest, tapping her foot impatiently. After they had told me, my Grandma barged between the two police officers and started firing off orders of packing a bag and getting all my stuff packed. We weren’t going to stay in the ‘hell hole’ anymore.

As I was packing up my things, completely in shock, I heard my Grandma down the hall, bitching and moaning about having to take care of me. I knew then and there that things were never going to be the same.

After my Grandma had hauled me over to her trailer, that was not much better than the ‘hell hole’ I used to live in, I didn’t see my dad for two weeks. Every day I would ask to go to him, and she always told me, and I quote, ‘I couldn’t see the bastard yet.’

Two weeks after I went to live with Vivian (she hated when I called her grandma), I got to see my dad. After I was searched and everything, I was led to a room with a glass wall, with the partition with stools in between each small wall. I was told to sit on the stool furthest to the left and waited.

It had taken ten minutes before my father walked through the door. He looked the same as the last time I had seen him, except for the orange jumpsuit he was wearing. He sat down on the other side of the glass and picked up the phone. He motioned his hand for me to do the same. I put the receiver to my ear and held my breath.

“Hey, baby girl.” He always called me baby girl. I couldn’t remember him ever using my real name unless he was serious, and serious didn’t often happen with my dad.

“Hi, Daddy,” I whispered.

“Everything going ok over at Vivian’s?”

I nodded my head, not talking.

“I’m sorry, baby girl. I didn’t plan for this to happen,” he said. My first thought was, what a stupid saying. Who the hell plans to drink twenty-four beers and then plow a family off the road? I think there is a short list of people who plan for something like this.

“It’s ok,” I said. What else was I supposed to say?

“I think I’m going to be in here for a while.”

I again nodded my head, because it finally hit me. Seeing my father behind a thick glass wall in an orange jumpsuit was hammering it home, that life as I knew it was about to change. A tear I had been holding in streaked down my face and landed on the small ledge in front of me.

“Don’t cry, baby girl,” my dad said, as his eyes were on me watching the tears I was holding in, run down my cheeks.

“I don’t know what to do, Daddy,” I wheezed out. My tears were coming fast and furious now. I was five seconds away from becoming an emotional blubbering mess.

“You don’t need to worry. Vivian is going to take care of you. I had the police call her as soon as they could,” he said, trying to reassure me.

I nodded my head, unable to talk. I tried wiping away the tears, but by the time I wiped them away, new ones were falling, taking their place.

“Karmen,” he sternly said into the phone. I glanced up at him and saw him staring at me. “Handel’s don’t cry, Karmen. Dry your tears. Nothing can be done now, but to go on and make the best of the situation we are in.”

I wiped my eyes again, willing the tears to stop. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Kleenex Vivian had pressed into my hand as I walked to the door before. My father’s words rang in my head. He always used to say ‘We need to make the best of our situation.’ He would always tell me that when we would run out of money, or have to find a new place to live.

“I don’t know how to go on, daddy. Vivian doesn’t want me there,” I hiccupped into the phone.

My dad shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know what to tell you, baby doll. We both have to do things we don’t want to right now. I wish things could be different, but they can’t.”

“I know,” I whispered into the phone. I didn’t want my dad to worry about me when he was in jail. I’d have to keep my fears to myself about living with Vivian.

“I need to talk to your grandma now.” I nodded my head. “I love you, Karmen. Please don’t forget that.”

“I love you too, Daddy,” I whispered. I hung up the phone and quickly dashed out of the room before I started crying in front of him again.

After my grandma had talked to him, we went home, where she started making dinner and told me to sit at the kitchen table so we could have a talk.

“We need to get a few things straight, Karmen,” she said, lighting a cigarette and blowing a puff of smoke in my direction. “Your father told me you said I didn’t like you. Is that right?” she asked, staring me down.

I nodded my head yes because there was no point in lying.

“It’s not that I don’t like you, Karmen, it’s just that I am well beyond the age of taking care of a teenager. I’m upset with your father, not you.”

“I understand,” I replied.

“I think we will get along just fine if we both just stay out of the other one's way. I know you are thirteen years old and more than capable of taking care of yourself. Lord knows you have been taking care of that sorry excuse for a father since you were old enough to talk.”

I didn’t argue with her because she was speaking the truth. I can’t remember when my dad and I had switched roles. I had been taking care of him since I could remember.

“Alright, then that’s settled. Now, why don’t you run to your room and work on your homework or whatever,” she said, dismissing me with the wave of her hand, as she turned to the fridge.

I didn’t need to be told twice. I was halfway down the hall by the time she opened the fridge. I slammed my door behind me and leaned against the closed door and slid down it.

I wrapped my arms around my raised knees and rested my chin on them. I was so angry and upset at my father, but I had no one to talk to about it. I closed my eyes and banged my head on the door.

“It’s not fair,” I said out loud to my sparse bedroom.

Vivian had only given me a mattress on the floor to sleep on and a three-drawer dresser. That was all that was in my room.

I had boxes sitting in the corner of things I used to have in my room, but I didn’t want to take them out of the boxes. Taking all my pictures and things out of the boxes made this real. As long as I lived out of those boxes, this was not real.

I thought about how putting things in boxes made things better and decided to start putting everything in a box that I didn’t want to feel. The first thing I put in my little boxes was my anger with my father.

Opening that box in my head and placing that anger inside and then slamming the lid on top helped. I didn’t have to feel that anger anymore.

Every day, for the past 12 years, I filled my tiny little boxes with a couple of things. Sad because I was all alone? Put it in a box and don’t think about it. An ‘A’ on my math test and Vivian telling me to go to my room when I tried to tell her? Put it in a box and don’t think about it.

All through my teenage years, I had probably thousands of tiny boxes that I neatly put on a shelf and never thought about again. Things always fit nicely into the boxes.

Everything except Nickel. As much as I tried to shove his gorgeous smile in the box, I could never forget about it.

Every week he would come in and visit his grandmother like clockwork every Tuesday at nine o’clock. His grandmother had been transferred to the nursing home I worked at as an RN, almost a year ago.

I still remember the day he had walked into her room as I was checking her blood pressure. He waltzed in as if he owned the place and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him since. His grandmother was one of my favorite patients. She was sweet but had a smart-ass streak to her.

Every Tuesday he would insist on me either staying and having a snack with them as he held up a bakery bag. He would track me down if he didn’t see me in her room and ask me how my day was going.

He always had a leather vest on that had his name, Nickel, on it and a huge patch on the back that was the insignia of the Asphalt Lords. All I knew about the Asphalt Lords was that they were a motorcycle club, and they rode bikes everywhere they went. I was seriously oblivious to everything he was.

The only thing I wasn’t oblivious to was his gorgeous smile and dark blue eyes. Whenever he was done talking to me, he always winked and smiled as he walked away. That wink and smile drove me crazy.

That man was everything I didn’t want in my life, and that was the exact reason I needed to find a box big enough to fit him in. I needed to slam the lid down on him and
never
think of him again. If only things were that easy.

Nickel

Tuesday. Also known as Blue Ball Day.

Every Tuesday I would come and see my grandma, and every Tuesday I would leave with such a raging hard on from seeing Karmen. I tried to get her to talk to me every time I saw her. I was starting to get desperate.

I had recently started bringing her shit from the bakery in town to try to entice her to sit with me, but she never took the bait.

Today was no different. After she had cooly let me down, I had walked out the front doors, deciding I was done trying to get her to go out with me. I had never worked so hard for a chick in my life before. I still had some pride left, and she wasn’t going to strip me of that.

I pulled out a cigarette and lit it. As I was taking my first drag, my phone started ringing, and I dreaded answering it. I looked at the display and saw it was Pipe, my VP, calling.

“Yo,” I said, putting the phone to my ear.

“We need you to do a run tonight. Brinks had some shit come up with his ol’ lady and can’t make it.”

“Fuck no. I got shit to do this evening. I told Pyro I would help him with the fireworks for Shake the Lake tonight,” I spit out. I was so fucking sick of this bullshit. I seemed to be the only one who could fucking be counted on, but you think I would get respect from these fuckers? Fuck no. Don’t even get me started on not wanting to go on these fucking runs.

The Weston chapter of the Asphalt Lords had recently voted in taking on muleing for a notorious drug lord. The vote had gone through eight to four. Three other brothers and I were the only ones to vote against it.

Except, since the vote had gone through, I had been the one doing most of the runs and taking most of the risk. This shit was getting old real quick.

“You go now; you’ll be back before fucking sundown.”

“You know I’m not down with this shit, Pipe,” I bit off. Pipe also voted against the muleing, but with the vote going through he had to be behind it now.

“I know, Nickel, but I got no one else to do it. You and Boink just need to drop a couple of things off and grab one thing, and you’ll be done for the night. Promise,” Pipe said, knowing I wasn’t down with this shit.

“I better be back by fucking six, Pipe.”

“You will be, Nickel.” I ended the call and shoved the phone in my pocket. Gah, this was fucking bullshit! I paced the sidewalk, running my fingers through my hair wondering how the hell shit had gone sideways so quickly in the club.

“Nickel!” I spun around and saw Karmen standing at the door of the nursing home.

“Yeah?”

“Um, I think you might have left your keys.” She looked around nervously, my keys dangling from her fingertips. Even in hospital scrubs, this chick drove me crazy.

I patted down my pockets, feeling for my keys but didn’t feel them. They must have fallen out when I kissed Margret bye. “Yeah, babe, they’re mine.”

She looked around again, deciding if it was safe to walk towards me. I should have been a gentleman and walked to her, but I didn’t. I wanted to see if she would make the move towards me. She looked like a scared little lamb, and I was the big, bad wolf who wanted to make a meal of her.

“Um, is everything ok?” she asked, taking a step towards me. “I heard you yelling into the phone before and didn’t want to interrupt you.”

I shook my head and laughed. “Nothing a six pack won’t fix.”

“Oh, well, here’s your keys.” She held them out to me from five feet away and waited for me to grab them.

“You got plans tonight?” I was done chasing this chick. I was getting straight to the point.

“Um…”

“You say that a lot, babe.”

“What?” she asked, confused.

“You say um a lot.”

“Oh, I guess I never noticed.” She stood there staring at me.

“Plans? You got any tonight?”

“Um,” She blushed red, realizing she just said um again, and her eyes darted down. “No plans.”

“You ever been to Shake the Lake?”

“Once, when I was seventeen. I didn’t get to see the fireworks, though.”

I reached out to grab my keys but grabbed her hand instead. “Come with me tonight,” I pleaded, our eyes locking.

She tried to jerk her hand out of my grasp, but I tightened my grip. “I can’t,” she insisted.

“Sure you can. You just told me you don’t have plans.”

“Um, I forgot that I have to go to… um… badminton practice,” she stuttered.

“Badminton practice?”

I didn’t think she could blush anymore, but her cheeks turned a dark shade of red and nodded her head yes. “I felt that I needed to broaden my horizons and figured that would be a good place to start.”

“Well, how about you broaden your horizon with me tonight, and you can pick back up with your badminton practice next week.” Her eyes darted to the left, and I knew she was scrambling to find an excuse not to go. “Please,” I begged.

“Um, what time is it?” she asked hesitantly.

“Dusk. I need to help Pyro set things up so you can either come with me and wait while I set things up or I can swing by after we’re done and we can watch the fireworks together.” Holy shit, I think Karmen was actually going to say yes.

“I have to work in the morning so I can’t be out all night.” Her hands were clasped in front of her, gripped tightly.

“I’ll have you home in time to slip into bed with a full nights rest.”

She just stared at me, her eyes uncertain. This was the moment of truth. Was Karmen going to give me the time of day?