Sons of Mayhem 3: The Full Force (12 page)

W
hen I got
to the police station I knew something was wrong. After parking outside I walked to the front door and I could see there was trouble.

There were half a dozen people holding cameras, waiting anxiously for someone to emerge. Maybe it was unconnected to Lonnie, I thought at first, until I saw my blue head nemesis. The RockIt girl bitch was with a group of photographers, though her equipment of choice was a new iPhone rather than an expensive DSLR.

Oh well, I’d just have to go for it. I marched forward, confidently pushing myself through the huddle. My hand was on the door to push it open before she recognized me.

“Hey! She’s with him!”

I turned my head to look and there were a thousand clicks as the photographers took bursts of photos of me. Goddamit. I turned my head forward and looked down, raising my free hand to my face as I pushed the door open and hurried inside.

What the hell was all that about? Like a lot of things lately it didn’t make sense. They didn’t follow me inside and I welcomed the oasis of quiet for a minute before making my way to the front desk.

A kindly looking lady in a flowery dress greeted me and her smile put me at ease.

“Hi, I’m here to pick someone up. His name is Lonnie.”

She tilted her head to the side, her smile slipping slightly. “I don’t think we have anyone here by that name, honey. Do you have a full name?”

I thought rapidly but realized that no, I didn’t actually know his full name. “He’s a biker, first name Lonnie. He was brought in about three or four hours ago.”

“There was a biker, but his name was – –”

“Matthew Thirsk,” said a familiar voice behind me.

I turned and gave him a look. “That’s news to me, Lonnie.”

“Sorry. Lonnie is a nickname, but it might as well be my real name here in the States. It’s what everybody calls me.”

I felt disappointed that he kept it from me, even though I realized it was more oversight rather than malicious deceit. I probably should have recognized it was a nickname. And did Lonnie even know
my
last name?

“Let’s go. My paperwork should all be sorted.” He raised his eyebrows at the lady behind the desk. “Right?”

She nodded. “Have a great day, and y’all come back now!” The lady’s shoulders shook at her little joke. I imagined her saying it a dozen times a day and never getting bored with it. I found myself grinning too. As if anyone would deliberately come back here.

“Hold on,” I said, squeezing Lonnie’s upper arm.

He looked down at me, his beautiful eyes glinting. “What’s the matter?”

I nodded towards the door.” There’s a bunch of reporters out there. And the blue haired bitch.”

“Shit.”

“All because you hit some guy?”

“I guess. Actually, it turned out that guy was the son of a state senator. And the band have been making waves recently…”

I nodded. That helped to explain the media interest a little bit more, but still, it seemed odd. Then again, with hundreds of TV channels and thousands of websites desperate for content they could make a story out of anything these days. A biker hired as security fracturing the jaw of the son of a state senator at an up and coming band’s ‘secret’ gig would be more than enough for some entertainment news.

“All right,” said Lonnie as he took off his cut, “let’s do this.” He pulled the leather clothing over his head to cover his face. I laughed and pulled off my light denim jacket and placed it over my face, leaving a small slit to look through.

Lonnie grabbed me by the hand, his strong grip reassuring as we made it over to the door.

“One… Two… Three!”

We burst through the door into the huddle of photographers. Lonnie lowered his shoulder and barged through them. We had the element of surprise and once we were through I pulled the jacket apart slightly to get a better view and pulled Lonnie’s hand, leading him to my car at a rapid trot.

The reporters hurried behind us but we made it into the car before they could get a good shot of us. When we were safely ensconced in the vehicle I locked the doors and held my clipboard up to cover my face. Lonnie used his jacket to do the same.

“Where to now?” I asked.

“How about that breakfast we were going to have?”

“Breakfast? It’s nearly 2pm!”

“Afternoon is the best time to have breakfast,” he said with a grin.

I laughed at the ridiculousness of his sentence. “Really?”

“Really. In fact, any time of the day is the best time for breakfast. A full English makes the perfect breakfast, lunch, or dinner.”

“The full English, huh? You think they’ll do that around here?”

He shrugged. “Probably not, but I’ll make do. Now, how about you run down some of these arseholes.”

“Your prospects just cleaned my car. I’d rather not get blood all over it.”

I started the engine and slammed my hand down on the horn which gave a rather unimpressive extended
beep
. I edged the car toward the reporters who grudgingly parted to avoid being run down. I held my clipboard in front of my face, tilted down so that I could peek underneath a few yards ahead of the car.

With Lonnie holding his cut over his head and me with my clipboard we edged out of the parking lot and onto the street. We were home free. I dropped my clipboard on my lap and pushed my foot down, accelerating us briskly away.

“
T
wo sausages
, four bits of bacon, two fried eggs, a piece of fried bread, a field mushroom, baked beans, fried tomatoes, black pudding and some haggis. With brown sauce. And a proper cup of tea. Builders.” I said confidently, watching Ava suppress her smiles as I finished off my order.

The server looked at me like I was from another planet. I suppose I was, in a way. The middle aged waitress looked down at her pad where she had initially started to scribble before giving up. She wrinkled her nose then looked up at me again. “Sir, would you mind ordering from the menu?”

I sighed and reluctantly gave the menu a once over. I wouldn’t be getting a Full English here it seemed. I’d have to have a word with Chad about giving me breakfast restaurant recommendations. “Fine. I’ll have the Big Cowboy Breakfast.” The waitress opened her mouth to speak again but I pre-empted her, years of having lived in the US finally having trained me. “Wheat toast. Orange juice and black coffee. Eggs sunny side up.”

“I’ll have the Alamo omelet with wheat toast as well, and black coffee,” said Ava, giving the waitress a winning smile. Now she was less angry I realized that she had the kind of face you could lose yourself in, at least I could. When I’d first met her -- if being slapped across the face really counts as meeting -- it was her fiery temper and body with just the right curves that intrigued me. But now I could see she was the whole package. Deep, thoughtful eyes with a playful sparkle, a smile to make nuns weep and a nose you just wanted to squeeze. And her lips. Just perfect for a kiss, and even better for--

“What are you staring at?”

“Nothing,” I said. Shit. What the hell had I been doing? I’m supposed to be a tough biker not a dreamy kid. Fuck it, there was no one here to laugh at me. Not that I cared if they did.

“Have I got something on my face?”

I leaned over the table and put a hand out to her cheek as if to wipe something off. Instead I cupped the back of her head and pulled her firmly toward me. She didn’t resist and a moment later her hot damp lips met mine across the table. Electricity flowed between us when we connected and I knew I was in serious shit. This girl and me really had something and I didn’t know where it was going to take us.

She broke away and leaned back in her booth, her cheeks tinged with red and her eyes wide. I leaned back too, wanting more but knowing I couldn’t have it right now. The waitress appeared and set down two hot cups of coffee and gave me a disapproving look. I didn’t care.

My eyes flickered across the room and latched onto the TV in the corner. Fuck. It was tuned to some bullshit entertainment channel and the current story they were running was me. I guessed it was time to tell Ava my little secret.

“
Y
ou want
to hear something about my past?” he asked.

My mind was running at a hundred miles an hour and doing some listening instead of some speaking seemed like a good idea. That kiss, such a simple thing after our earlier frantic lovemaking -- fucking -- had changed everything. This guy. This guy was no longer just ‘a guy’, he was no longer a dirty little escape from the drudgery of my job and the responsibility of looking after my sister. No longer just a little fling, a bit of rough to tide me over. I could see now, whether I liked it or not, we had a destiny together.

Destiny. Shit, that reminded me. Hopefully this destiny was less dumb than that imagined by his old friend the bassist.

“Hello?” he said to me.

Shit. What was the question? Oh yeah, about his past. “Sure.”

“You know I know the band, right?”

I nodded. They were all British and he knew them from back home. That’s how his club had got the job providing security for the band’s shows.

“The thing is…”

I tilted my head, giving him a quizzical look. “What?”

“I was
in
the band. That’s why,” he waved a hand across the room to a television, “they were so interested in me at the cop shop.” On the television were me and Lonnie, faces covered, running toward my car. I felt a surge of excitement followed by annoyance. I’d never been on the television before but I wasn’t exactly sure this is how I wanted to appear.

“You were in the band?”

“Yeah. About ten years ago. It was called Wrack and Ruin then, but it’s basically the same band. Si took my spot.”

“The guy my sister is with? That Si?”

He nodded.

“How come you didn’t mention it before?”

He shrugged. “That part of my life is over. Done. I left it behind, came to the States. We had a record deal back then but it fell through. We were all arguing all the time, it was just no good for me, or for any of us. Shit, I’m surprised they managed to stay together without killing each other all this time. I couldn’t deal with that shit anymore - didn’t need that kind of drama in my life.

I had an uncle in Philadelphia who invited me to come over so I just said ‘fuck it’, and I left. Then a couple of years later I ended out West and,” he fingered his patch-laden cut, “I kind of settled down over here.”

“Huh.” I looked at him again, imagining him up on a stage with an instrument. I could kind of see it. Girls would have loved that bad boy. “Do you miss it?”

He laughed. “Hell no. Living in crappy health-hazard housing with those crazy motherfuckers? Busking for money, selling weed, scraping money together to
buy
weed. Shit. It sucked.”

“They’re doing all right now though.”

He shrugged. “Yeah. But they spent near a decade living in squalor. I’ve had it better. And shit, I don’t
need
the money they’re earning now. I do okay and okay is good enough for me. What do I need? Give me a motorcycle, somewhere to sleep at night, cheap food and cheap beer and friends. The club. That’s all I need. Fuck the rest of it.”

I nodded. It sounded so simple, and simple sounded appealing. “Sounds nice.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I know you work in marketing, but what do you
do
?”

The waitress came back with two steaming plates the size of the wheels on my car. She laid them down in front of us, her thick forearms flexing as the plates thumped onto the table. I was ravenous and had been considering ordering extra toast, but upon seeing the size of the meal in front of me decided to shelve that plan for the time being.

“I don’t know. I look after Lily, I work. I was studying and working so much the last few years. I didn’t get around to really
doing
anything. Nothing for fun, anyway. Not since our parents passed away.”

I shoved my fork into my omelet and it oozed molten cheese, peppers, sausage and jalapenos. This was going to be good.

“What happened?”

Talking about death is never fun. I wanted to just eat my brunch. But shit, I was getting close to Lonnie,
wanted
to get closer. I guessed I could manage a short answer.

“It was a Friday night. They always went out on a Friday. Dinner and a movie. On the way back they went through an intersection. They had a green light. A semi went through the intersection too. The driver was looking at his new cell phone. He had a red light. Sixty miles an hour. Boom.

One minute we were a happy family, the next me and Lily were orphans. It was a week after my high school graduation. Suddenly I was an adult with serious responsibilities.”

He was holding a piece of toast in one hand that had paused on its journey from plate to mouth. I could see in his eyes he felt sorry for me, and regretted asking that question then.

“It was a long time ago. I’m okay now. Let’s see if we can clear these plates.”

He looked down at his Big Cowboy breakfast and nodded dubiously. I think I had caused him to lose his appetite a little.

“Alright. Let’s eat. Then make a plan for this evening. The fight.”

I nodded and put the first forkful of omelet into my mouth. It was heavenly. Chad Chad Price rapidly went up in my estimation as I began to devour the plate full of food in a most unladylike manner. It was damn good and if Lonnie noticed the way I shoveled the food down he didn’t comment, being too busy attacking his own plate. Although it wasn’t an ‘English’ breakfast he seemed pretty satisfied with the food nonetheless.