He really needed to shave.
Well, either that or crawl over the table and fuck me.
“Huh?” I said as I shook my head from side-to-side.
“What part didn’t you get?” he asked.
“I uhhm. I think I had a spasm or something. I didn’t hear anything. I was watching your mouth move, but I didn’t hear anything,” I said.
“Catch anything about the book I’m reading?” he asked.
I shook my head and shrugged an apology.
Leaning back in the chair, he slowly raised his hand to his chin. As he massaged his beard, he scrunched his brow and silently stared until it appeared he wanted more. With his eyes still fixed on mine, he leaned forward and rested his muscular arms on the edge of the table. His eyes were an odd color of green but were lightly sprinkled with little brown specks, and all but made me become a helpless and hopeful little girl each time he opened them wide. I gazed back at him blankly in admiration, all the while hearing my heartbeat and fearing he could do the same. I tried to turn away, but my eyes remained locked on his as if he was in control.
In all reality, he was.
“No shit?” he asked. “Nothing?”
“Sorry,” I said with a smile.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “Just went deaf for a minute, huh?”
I grinned at the sight of him and did my best to change the subject. “So what are you reading?”
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
I attempted to wipe the grin from my face and remain in his good graces. “Nothing.”
“What are you smiling about?” he asked.
“About? Uhhm, nothing. Not about anything. I dunno, maybe because of something, I guess. Sorry,” I stammered.
He pushed his cup of coffee to the side of the table and turned his palm upward. “Because…”
“You really want to know?” I asked.
He relaxed into the back of his chair and cleared his throat lightly. “Enlighten me, sure.”
“Because you’re fucking me right,” I said.
He coughed a laugh and leaned forward slightly. “Is there a wrong way?”
I flipped my hair over my shoulders and leaned forward, grinning the entire time. “Believe me, there are plenty of wrong ways, and it appears you don’t know any of them.”
“And being fucked right makes you smile?” he asked.
“You ever seen a girl who has CBF?” I asked.
He shifted his eyes down to the table and shrugged his shoulders. “Guess I don’t know what that is.”
“Chronic Bitch Face,” I said as I pursed my lips and narrowed my gaze.
“See women like that all the time,” he said with a laugh.
“Well,” I responded as I raised my coffee cup. “They’re not getting fucked right.”
He nodded his head and grinned.
“And women like this,” I paused and grinned a big cheesy grin. “They’re getting all the dick they need.”
“And you?” he asked.
With each index finger, I pressed the corners of my mouth upward until it hurt, doing my best to create a smile like The Joker on Batman.
He raised his hand to his face, pressed his palm against his beard, and winked.
“That’s good to know. So, what’s the latest masterpiece or flop in the world of Independent authors?” he asked.
“Masterpiece? Loving Mr. Daniels, by Brittainy Cherry,” I responded.
“Good?” he asked.
“Words can’t describe it. I’m thinking I’m just going to take a few pictures of the tears I shed when I read it and post them. It’s a fucking masterpiece,” I said.
“It’s about time you read a good one,” he said with a nod.
“Did you finish the one about the guy with cancer?” I asked.
“Sure did. Same thing. A fucking masterpiece. In the end she was…”
He paused and shook his head.
“I’m not going to ruin it. You’ll read it soon enough,” he said.
“Started anything new?” I asked.
He nodded his head. “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. You know, I heard a lot about it, but never read it for some reason. I never really got into those kinds of books, but this motherfucker’s good.”
“It sure is. How far along are you?” I asked.
“Half,” he said.
I nodded my head. “You’ll love it.”
“Have to beat anybody up this week?” I asked, coughing out a laugh as I did so.
He shook his head and started to laugh, almost choking on his water as he did so. “No. But I pushed a guy down some steps on accident.”
“Really? By accident?” I asked.
He eventually stopped laughing and told the story. “I told him I was going to, and I grabbed his shoulders and acted like I was about to shove him. He was some Romanian dude, and he was wearing one of those shiny fucking track suits. So, I grabbed him, pushed him a little to add some incentive, and the fucker slipped out of my hands and fell down the steps. Those shiny jackets are slippery as fuck.”
“Did he pay up?” I asked.
“Like a fucking slot machine. As soon as I got to the bottom of the steps, he was reaching for his wallet,” he said.
“Well, I guess that’s good,” I said.
It didn’t bother me that Vince did what he did for a living. In his own words, he forced people to realize the responsibility associated with making a promise. Most of the broken promises he dealt with had to do with money, and he simply made sure they met their part of the commitment they had already agreed to. In his mind he was teaching people to be moral.
“And yesterday, a couple of one hundred and ten pound twin meth heads who owed a guy thirteen grand and hadn’t paid him a dime had a box with about thirty grand worth of meth and twenty-five grand in cash in it when I showed up. But they didn’t make one phone call to try and pay for the dope that got them there. I fucking swear,” he said.
“Drug dealers without morals,” I said as I shrugged my shoulders.
“Men without a moral code. It doesn’t matter the profession,” he said.
I guess not,” I said.
I waved at the waitress as she walked past. We had been at the restaurant long enough after dinner that we’d changed waitresses.
“I need coffee,” I said as she walked up to the table.
“Make it two, please,” Vince said.
“Cream or sugar?” she asked.
“Black on both,” he responded.
Vince paid attention to all of the details. I liked it that he knew how I liked my coffee, noticed what perfume I was wearing, and remembered the year of car I drove. He recalled what jeans or outfits I wore on certain days, and made reference to them later, describing the time, place, and article of clothing. It was nice to think a man had enough interest in me to remember things about me. As with most things about Vince, his actions and his manner of living reminded me of my father.
The waitress quickly returned with two cups of coffee. After thanking her and sliding one of them toward my side of the table, Vince raised his cup to his mouth and took a sip.
“So, I have a question,” he said over the rim of the cup.
He wasn’t a very predictable man, but when he preceded a question with that particular statement, it meant that whatever he was going to ask was something he felt was significant.
“Let’s hear it,” I said as I reached for my cup of coffee.
“Well, Thanksgiving is coming up a week from this coming Thursday, and I was wondering if you’d like to spend the day at my mother’s? I want you to meet her and she’s been asking about you,” he said.
Immediately, my heart felt swollen. “You told her about me?”
He lowered the cup of coffee to the table and pushed it to the side. “I told her about you six months ago, Sienna. She knows we’re in a relationship now, and she’s pretty excited. So yeah, she wants to meet you.”
When my father went to p
rison my mother’s sister came down from Ohio and stayed with me. At the time she was young, single, and felt sorry for me. Although I never met her before my father went away, we got along fine, but I always felt in the back of my mind that she blamed my father for the death of my mother. Why else would my aunt never take the time to meet her niece, I wondered? After my father was released, she left, and I hadn’t seen her since.
For me, holidays were a thing of the past. Since my father’s death, my music was my Christmas, and I enjoyed his favorite album, A Very Special Christmas, all year round. I hadn’t celebrated a birthday, Thanksgiving, or a Christmas in the presence of anyone since he died, and although I hadn’t told Vince yet, Christmas was not only Christmas as he knew it, but it was my birthday.
“I’d uhhm. Thank you. Yes, I think I’d love to. Do we get dressed up or anything?” I asked.
“Well, funny you asked. My mother’s kind of old fashioned, and she would skin me alive if I dressed like this for Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. It’s just been in the last few years that she’s come to terms with me having tattoos. So, if you could wear a dress, that’d sure be nice,” he said.
Squeeeeee!
I tried my very best to hide my excitement. “Sure, I’ll dig around in my closet and find something nice.”
Sienna’s going shopping…Sienna’s going shopping…
“She cooks a huge meal, and she’ll expect us to eat damned near everything,” he said.
“Sounds great,” I said. “I love Thanksgiving. Can I help? I mean can I cook anything?”
It was becoming more difficult to contain myself. The thought of it all was almost too much. My father had been gone almost five years, and to think I was going to share a holiday with Vince was almost too much to comprehend.
“We’ll go see her maybe Sunday or something, how’s that?” he asked as he reached for his coffee.
I leaned on the edge of the table and batted my eyelashes. “Uhhm, Sunday’s tomorrow.”
“Okay, we’ll go see her tomorrow. If you don’t like her, it’ll give you time to bow out of the Thanksgiving deal, how’s that?” he said with a laugh.
“Sounds perfect,” I said.
Before I met his mother, I needed desperately to get my nails done, go get makeup, buy a new dress, spend a few minutes in a tanning booth, and make a few adjustments to my ratty hair.
“What time?” I asked as I reached for my coffee.
“I don’t know, noon?” he asked.
“How about a little later? I have a few things I need to get done first.” I said.
He relaxed in his chair, sipped his coffee as he studied me for a moment, eventually placing his cup on the table and pushing it to the side. As he rested his massive forearms on the edge of the table and leaned forward, he grinned.
“What? Get your nails done, go fake bake, and hit the mall?” he asked.
Vince Ames may have been a biker, a criminal of sorts, and a debt collector for drug dealers, but to me, he was perfect.
And I deserved his perfection.
VINCE
November 16, 2014
Introducing Sienna to my mother required a level of commitment on my part not much different than marriage. In my lifetime, only one other woman had met my mother, and it was my ex-wife. In inviting Sienna into my mother’s home, I was not only inviting her into my life, but into my mother’s life. As far as I was concerned, this would make Sienna part of the family.
In a short period of time, I beat myself up about her meeting my mother, and cancelled the Sunday plans, and simply left Thanksgiving as the meeting day. Sienna was ready, I was afraid I was not so ready.
“So, you ready for this?” I asked. “Just a few more days. I can’t wait for you to meet her.”
He glanced upward and stared for a moment. It appeared he intended to be attentive, but eventually his eyes fell closed and he lowered his head. Apparently I was boring him with my subject matter, and he was about to fall asleep.
“You fucking prick. Don’t you dare pass out before I’m done, you rude son-of-a-bitch. When I’m talking, you good and god damned well better listen, understand?” I seethed.
He shook his head violently, no doubt attempting to prevent himself from falling asleep. He slowly shifted his eyes to meet mine, blinked a few times, and lowered his chin slightly.
“So anyway, she’s pretty to look at, but she’s also pretty damned smart. She reads more books than Pop and me combined,” I said.
He blinked his eyes again and stared, apparently waiting for me to continue
“Hard to believe, I know, but she reads half a dozen books a week. And, she’s thin. Not one of the unhealthy skinny bitches like you see on television or in those fucking magazines, but just naturally thin, like a supermodel. And her hair? Wait ‘till you see it. It’s perfect. Her eyebrows are hit and miss, but don’t you dare stare at ‘em, got it?”
I paused and shifted my eyes to meet his.
Fast asleep and lightly snoring, it was obvious he had very little interest in knowing anything about Sienna before she made her grand entrance for Thanksgiving dinner.
I turned toward the sound of the front door opening, and met my mother’s gaze as she peered toward the porch swing where we were seated.
“I can’t believe this weather we’re having,” she said. “It’s so nice out here. Now you two need to come in here for dinner, it’s ready.”
I stood from the porch swing and shrugged my shoulders. “He’s asleep.”
She shook her head lightly and sighed signature sigh of frustration. “He’s going to be mad if he misses dinner, just wake him up.”
“Bradley!” I shouted. “Dinner’s ready.”
He opened his eyes, jumped from the porch swing, and ran toward the front door.
“He was tired of listening to your stories, that’s all,” she said over her shoulder as she walked away.
“He’s the only one in this house that pays attention to me. He just fell asleep,” I said as I followed her into the house.
Bradley and I followed her into the dining room. As she pulled her chair away from the table she shifted her eyes toward me and sighed again. “I listen to what you say.”
I pulled my chair away from the table, sat down, and placed my napkin in my lap. “You listen to what I say, but Bradley hears me.”
“Who’s saying grace?” she asked.
“I said it last week,” I said.
“You sure did,” she responded as she reached toward the plate of roast beef.
After picking up a piece of meat large enough to choke a horse, she held it to the side and shook it. Within a few seconds she had Bradley’s full attention. Having performed this ritual no less than a thousand times, he knew just what to do.
He situated himself directly beside her, sat, and tilted his head back.
“It’s your turn to say grace, Bradley,” she said.
“Woof!” Bradley barked as he stared up at the roast beef.
“Amen,” my mother said as she dropped the piece of meat.
“Amen,” I said.
“So, finally. What’s it been? A year? And you’re finally bringing her to meet us,” she said as she began to spoon mashed potatoes onto her plate.
“I met her in June. And we didn’t start seeing each other until I took her those flowers, and I think that was in August,” I said.
“It was July. The forth,” she said.
I shook my head as I loaded my plate with meat. “August.”
“That’s exactly why Bradley falls asleep when you talk to him. He gets tired of the fibs you tell,” she said.
“He falls asleep because he’s fat and unhealthy,” I said, knowing what I said would irritate her.
She turned and glared at me over the top of her fork full of mashed potatoes. “Stephen Vincent! Take it back.”
“It’s true,” I said.
“Every word out of your mouth is a fib. Bradley’s not fat, he’s muscular. And it w
as right after you got beat up, because you had those stitches in your face. It was July forth, and we were eating fried chicken. Right here,” she said as she pointed at the table.
“I know where we were, Mother. Whatever, Okay, July. Fine,” I said.
“So, six months ago you started seeing her, and just now I get to meet her. I think it’s sad,” she said.
“Well, you won’t have anything else to complain about here in about ten days,” I said.
She wagged her fork in my direction and cleared her throat. “They’re not complaints, they’re observations. Now, eat your dinner.”
“Well, I’m excited to finally meet her,” she said. “And if you’ve been seeing her all year, and if you truly love her, you should…”
She paused and took a bite of bread.
“I should what?” I asked.
She handed Bradley another piece of roast beef, glanced upward, and shook her head as we made eye contact. “Never mind. I’m excited to meet her, that’s all.”
I forced a sigh of sarcasm and continued to eat. I was pretty sure I knew fully what my mother intended to say. She was a master at hinting at what she wanted, expected, or believed she deserved, but not actually saying it.
And, in time, I was pretty sure I would grant her wish.
SIENNA
November 27th, 2014
Dressed in a new black V-neck pleated dress, 2” heels, and a black shawl, I felt as beautiful as Vince said I looked. Vince was dressed in dress jeans, dress boots, and a black button down shirt. Much to my surprise, he allowed me to drive, and we listened to Christmas music the entire way to his mother’s house. I felt for the entire trip that my life was finally not only precisely where I had always wanted it to be, but exactly as I deserved it to be.
The neighborhood wasn’t exactly what I had expected, and as we pulled into the driveway of the two-story brick home, I was immediately surprised at the size, perfect landscape, and southern appeal. The home clearly stood out as being different than all the others surrounding it.
A red brick home with wrap-around porch complete with porch swing, white shuttered windows, and a yard filled with huge trees in a middle class neighborhood wasn’t where I expected Vince’s mother to be living. Considering the fact that Vince’s father was a biker who had died in prison, and Vince was an only child, I expected a little more modest – and much smaller – home.
Money Shot: Selected Sinners MC Romance Page 10