Heavy Hogs MC

by Elias Taylor

  “Autumn?” one of my employees called.

  “What!” I barked.

  “Umm, I have a few packages that came for you while you were away. I can leave them outside the door if you like.”

  “Just leave them there.” I snapped. Irritability had come knocking, and I was answering.

  “Sorry!” Feet scampered away from the door.

  I worked hard, trying to put my fears and negative thoughts to rest, but they wouldn’t go away. I dug into my chocolate stash in the top drawer. I ate two pieces and surfaced reluctantly from my cubby hole. I paid no attention to my staff as I left and took myself over to the bookstore to check on it. Even the beauty of the sun couldn’t shake the mood I was stuck in.

  I walked in and saw the young girl I had working at the front desk.

  “Hi, Frances, how are things going over here?” I asked. She beamed at me, and I saw she had one of the books from the shelf in her hands. “Why are you reading the books from the shelf?”

  She looked down at her shoes and then up at me. “Autumn, you told me to read them so I could recommend them to customers. I thought it would be okay. I’m going to put it back.”

  My hormones really were playing tricks on me.

  “I need you to put it back. It might create dog ears on the pages.”

  I stomped to the back office to see if any new stock came in. It hadn’t. Between my swollen feet and hot flashes, I thought I might stab someone. I tried to calm down. I realized I had been too harsh. I breathed slowly. I told myself to remember by prenatal classes and imagine green meadows and lambs frolicking.

  To top it all off, I was upset that wearing my sexy kitten heels was out now. I had to settle for flats. I cried into my hands. I felt so helpless. So lost. All these crazy things were happening to my body, and all I felt was stress, which couldn’t be good for the baby. I was tired of myself. Tired of my mind running and my not being able to catch up with it. I plucked one of my tissues, the last one. Great.

  I closed my eyes and tried to meditate. My little baby started kicking, disrupting me. I got up and went back out to the front desk.

  “Frances, I want to apologize. Forgive me. I’m nuts because of this pregnancy. I’m really sorry for being awful. You can read the books. I’m sure you know to keep them in good condition.”

  “It’s okay, Autumn. I knew you didn’t mean it. It must be hard being pregnant.” Frances was more forgiving than I was.

  “Yes, it is, but I still shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

  “Thanks for the apology. My mom really liked the other book you gave her, by the way.”

  I smiled. At least my customers were happy. “She did? That’s great. Take that book, Frances. Keep it. I’m sorry for being a complete bitch.”

  Frances reached over and gave me a hug. I received it.

  “I don’t want to start crying again. Thank you so much for understanding.”

  “You’re okay, Autumn. I love working here. It’s so much fun. I know you didn’t mean it.”

  I left the bookstore and decided to go back to The Red Gorilla. I had to make it right with the staff. I loved them all. They were like my second family and integral to the running of my business.

  Phoebe watched me carefully as I walked over to her. “Water, Autumn?”

  “Yes, that’s what I need.” She poured some water for me and continued to polish the glasses in silence. A reasonable crowd of men and women had formed. Some were in the lounge, getting ready for the girls to come out and put on a show. Some others were chatting amongst themselves and listening to the background music.

  “Am I getting the silent treatment I deserve?” I felt the wetness from hair sticking to my forehead. I was sweating like an overrun engine.

  “No.” Phoebe replied casually. “I just noticed you were in a pregnancy mood, so I thought I would leave you with that.” She held a glass up to the light and squinted.

  I let the cool water slide down the back of my throat. “I feel terrible. I snapped at a few staff today. Are Kylie, Robert, and Angel still here? Pizzas are on me. I’m just crazy, and these hormones have me turning into a savage. Please forgive me.”

  “I will try.” She smiled. I threw her a pained look and shuffled behind the bar for a hug. She kissed my forehead.

  “It’s all right, mama. Friends for life.”

  “Thank you. Let me call for these pizzas. My poor staff. I’m a monster.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Reality Strikes

  Working on the rebuild of a new bike was keeping my head together. The structure of pulling the bike apart and reconstructing it to be bigger and better was always a worthy challenge to me.

  Autumn still wasn’t talking to me. Three weeks was our most extended separation, and now we were on week two of this stretch. Except the stakes were higher. Technically, we were engaged with a baby on the way. I tried to go to the hospital.

  “Hi, I’m here to see Autumn Bancroft. It’s an emergency. I’m the baby’s father.”

  An older nurse with glasses looked at her computer briefly. Patients were sitting patiently in the reception area.

  “Hmm. Yes, give me a minute. Ah, let me see here. She’s in Room C, Level One.

  I speed-walked to the elevator, racing to her room. I looked around the room frantically, and one other male patient with his leg in a cast looked back at me. Another empty bed was in front of me, with no one in it. I rubbed my head a couple of times and waited. Fifteen minutes passed, and there was no sign of Autumn.

  The guy with the cast finally spoke. “She might be gone a while. I think she went out of the back of the hospital. Nice lady.”

  “Okay, thanks, man.”

  “There’s a notepad right over there. Might want to leave her a message just in case. Are you that Carter guy?”

  I looked over where he was pointing and the pen and notepad on the table. “That’s my wife to be, and she’s pregnant. I came to check on her.” I said nervously while I scribbled on the paper.

  “You’re in trouble, buddy. I don’t think she wants to see you,” he said grimly.

  My face started to flush with anger. “Hey, dude, just worry about your leg. This has nothing to do with you.”

  “No business of mine, that’s right. I was just trying to look out for you. She’s pretty angry. You might want to come back another day.”

  Stubbornly, I sat in the chair next to Autumn’s hospital bed. “I’ll wait.”

  Twenty minutes passed. I looked over to the guy, and he flashed me a pitiful look.

  “You might be right. I’ll be back.”

  He shrugged his shoulders as I walked out.

  I tried one more time later in the week. I didn’t try to call anymore because she didn’t answer her calls.

  I followed the same footsteps and visited Autumn’s room. The same scene reoccurred like last time, except Autumn’s bed was made perfectly.

  I waved my hands to the sky in defeat. The man with the cast was laid up there.

  “Aw, buddy, I feel bad for you. She checked out a couple of hours ago.”

  I put my hands behind my head. “Dammit!”

  The guy chuckled. “She did get your note. I told her you look like a nice guy, and maybe she should give you a chance.”

  I took a closer look at the guy. He looked to be mid-fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a scruffy beard. “Any advice for me?”

  He gave me a knowing smile. “Yes, stick at it. She’ll come around.”

  “Thanks.” I walked out of the room, crushed, and made my way back to Custom Made.

  No Cali sun today. The forecast called for rain. There was no place I would rather be other than with Autumn. Try as I might, thoughts of her never left me for too long. She sat at the back of my brain. She had her own chair back there. I tried a couple of times over the last week to erase her for a while with alcohol, and that didn’t help. It just left me with dry-ass cottonmouth in the morning and a pocketful of regret.

  I
gave Magner the day off. He’d been working super hard the last few weeks. Especially as I tried to sort things out with Autumn, the baby, and the wedding. So it was just me, the bikes, and my intrusive thoughts.

  “Hey, buddy. Are you working hard here or what?” Magner made his presence known and pinched my shoulder muscles as he walked past.

  I’d been working for four hours straight and had my feet up, resting for a minute. All the bending was giving my knees a problem. “Hey, you got a day off. Go enjoy it.”

  “I was in the neighborhood, so I decided to swing by with a coffee.” He put a coffee down in front of me. He had one in his hand for himself, too.

  “Okay. You sure? Because I feel like you came to check up on me.”

  “Hey, you’re looking good, my man.” He ran his hands over the bike I was working on. “Okay, I did come to check up on you, I guess. You seem kinda down a little.”

  “I am. I think I’ve lost my girl.”

  Magner flashed me a sad and sorry look. “Man,” is all he said.

  “Magner. Can I talk to you about something?”

  “Sure, bud.” Magner pulled up a chair next to me.

  “I fucked up.”

  “What did you do now?”

  “Hey! Why do you automatically assume it was me?”

  Magner grimaced. “Because it usually is, my brother. Sorry to burst your bubble.”

  I had no comeback for that. I ran through the events between Autumn and me in my head. I found some beautiful memories and some painful memories, along with plenty of bumps in the road. At some point, we had to come to some common ground about things.

  “My phone is a piece of shit. Autumn and I had a fight, and I forgot to put it on to charge.” I left out the reason for the fight.

  “What else?”

  “She had some stomach pains with the baby and had to be rushed to the hospital. I missed the whole thing, Magner. By the time I charged the phone, I had all these messages from Autumn. She was cussing me out.”

  “You and that phone, I swear. It already caused your breakup the first time. Must be cursed.” Magner joked. “Was the fight about something major?”

  I put my feet down on the floor, and my mood changed. Once I told Magner what the fight was related to, he might be pissed, so instead, I said, “Just how we were going to work out finances. Stuff like that.”

  Magner put his coffee down. “Are you being honest with me about the finance stuff? Was it related to the business here?”

  “I mean, yes and no. It’s going to be tight for me with the baby and all. Temporarily.”

  “You do make it work. I’ve known you for a long time.” Magner looked around the shop. “It’s going to pan out for us. I know it will. We just gotta hang in there.”

  I drained the rest of my coffee while Magner spoke.

  “But, that phone situation. Man, you gotta fix that. If you truly love her, you gotta let her know. You have to be more serious about the situation, Carter.” He gave me one of those serious looks. “You’re about to have a family. It’s time to step up to the plate. You have to let her know that you can be consistent.”

  “I hear you.” I wanted to be. I just felt like I was a little out of my depth with it all.

  “Women like men who are consistent. You can’t be faltering when she’s in the middle of the pregnancy. You have a pretty crazy rep, and you need to let her know, despite what’s happened in the past, you’re going to be there for her.”

  “Pearls of wisdom.”

  “So what are you going to do about it? Because you’re stubborn sometimes, Carter, and you need to drop your ego.”

  “I do, huh?”

  “Yep. You do. Go get your girl, man. She loves you.”

  “Huh. I was a real ass from the start.”

  “You’ve been ducking and dodging. Sort it out. She’s good for you. You look miserable without her.”

  “You got that right.” If I was going to let go of my ego, the person who I would do that for was Autumn. I fell in love with her faster than I wanted to admit. I tried to fight it, but when love took over, there was not much I could do.

  “Magner. I need your help,” I said as a flash of inspiration came.

  “Sure, shoot.”

  “I need you to do me a favor.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Lucky Break

  Books in all shapes and sizes lined the walls. Toys for pleasure sat on shelves. It was an idea cooked up in my exotic dancing days, and never in a million years did I imagine I would be able to bring it to life. We were drunk that night, too.

  “Wouldn’t it be cool if I had a bookstore for all the horny women? And some toys?” I reached out to Phoebe, and she was laughing and appearing in double. All I heard was her girly laughter.

  “What? You nutbag, what are you talking about? We are strippers, and we make enough money.”

  “I dunno,” I slurred. “I always wanted to be a bookstore owner.”

  Phoebe double-crossed her feet as dancers strode in and out of the change room. She slapped my leg as we got changed to go home. “All right, goddammit. You get your rumpy-pumpy bookstore, and I’ll provide the drinks!” We fell into heaps of laughter after that.

  We had such good times, and back then, I didn’t have a care in the world. Funny how both of those things came about. True to my word, I bought my adult bookstore, and Phoebe ended up being the head bartender at both The Red Gorilla and during exclusive nights at the bookstore. Except now, I felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. I had to work out a plan for me and my baby. I wanted my baby to have a good life. I already knew he or she would have the love of my parents.

  My nervous system had been through the wringer, and my brain was working in overdrive to come up with new innovative ideas for the shop. I had the phone glued to my ear and was talking it over with Phoebe.

  “What do you think about a hot vixen night, and we could set up a male stripper night or something?”

  “Umm. I mean, don’t we have enough strippers at The Red Gorilla? I don’t like that idea.”

  Anxiety swam at the bottom of my stomach, and I knew it couldn’t be good for the baby or me. I rubbed my belly softly and reluctantly drank the carrot and green juice I had. I would have much rather had a latte in my hand. “I know. I know. Help a sister out! I’m trying here.”

  “Ummm. Okay. What about adult care packages?”

  My curiosity was piqued. “Care packages? Tell me more.”

  “Like if women are single, you make up boxes for them. Like a mini vibrator, an erotic read, a bookmark, and something else. And you could get some of the authors to come and do book signings.”

  I nearly jumped up from behind the register. “That’s fucking brilliant, Phoebe! And what we could do is bring in topless men and have them serve our new range of cocktails. I freaking love it!”

  Phoebe giggled. She was my right-hand woman in a lot of ways. I breathed out a little bit. Maybe this would be a slight respite. I still needed to make it happen, though. Phoebe read my mind.

  “I can help you with the catering side and the cocktails. I can round up a few guys, too.”

  “Would you? That would be awesome. When do you think we should run it?”

  “Hmm. We could try it out in another couple of months or so. That would give you time to come up with what you want to put in the boxes.”

  “I can normally organize this stuff myself. It’s just my pregnancy brain is getting in the way,” I groaned.

  “I get it. You don’t always need to do it all yourself, Autumn. You can get some help with things,” Phoebe responded.

  A group of three women walked into the shop, and I greeted them warmly.

  “Phoebe, I have to go. I have some people in the shop.” I grabbed a tissue from under the counter and dabbed my eyes.

  “No problem. See you tomorrow for brunch.”

  “You betcha.”

  I waddled over to the ladies and thought it might be a good opp
ortunity to ask the customers if they would like a ladies’ night. All three were gathered reading the spines of books. “Hi, ladies. Are you out enjoying the California sun today?”

  They turned and all honed in on my stomach.

  “We are, indeed. We had a few friends let us know about this shop,” one of the women said.

  It made me warm inside to know my shop was being referred to people. The store wasn’t doing too bad. My main goal was to break even. But with a little babe on the way, it might put a strain on things. My mind wouldn’t let me think about how Carter would contribute.

  “I’m so glad you came in. Would you ladies be interested in a ladies’ night with goodies and topless men?”

  All three women held up their hands and nodded. They giggled in unison.

  “Yes, please. Where do I sign up? I need to tell all the girls!”

  Women were so funny and worse than guys when it came to strippers. Most of the male strippers, if they were any good, got mauled by women.

  “Well, all right, then! It looks like I’m running a ladies’ night. I will leave a clipboard at the front for after you’re done looking around, and you can leave your names.”

  The ladies went back to browsing, and I felt confident it would work. If I got eighty women through the doors, I calculated, it would help me break even. A smile broke out on my face. Even if I had to do this single mother thing, I would thrive.

  My phone buzzed and fell off the counter. I reached to stop it from dropping. I yelped a little in pain, and one of the ladies came from around the corner.

  “You okay?” She touched my arm with concern.

  “I’m fine. I just reached a little too far too quickly.”

  She waited until I regained my composure. The doctor told me I should take it easy and rest more. But with the store and all that went down with Carter, I didn’t feel like I could afford to do that. He did try to come and see me. I still had the little note he left me.

  Babe, please talk to me. I’m having trouble with my phone, but that’s no excuse. I wanted to let you know I’m here for you. Let’s work this out.

  I still didn’t know what to do about him, so I pushed it to the back of my mind.