The story told could have been done in eighteen pages (I highlighted each one). Three hundred and three pages were useless graphic bullshit. In short, the book could have been edited down to roughly twenty pages at most, including the ridiculous preface and prologue.
Bottom line?
This book was nothing short of a disaster.
One star.
Because I have to give it something to get this review to post (you asked, Alton)
I did my best to read the review, and as the monitor’s screen began to sway back and forth in my field of vision, published it.
As I stood from my chair and reached for my wine, I fell against the desk, almost tipped over, and eventually ended up lowering myself to the floor rather gracefully, considering all things. After crawling to my bed and climbing up on it, I relaxed into a spinning room.
I hate that fucking book.
I covered my eyes with my pillow...
VINCE
May 10th, 2015
One thing I never expected to happen with Sienna was to be stood up. Not in a million years would I have thought I would have been left looking like a fool, but then again…
It had only been a year.
It took me fifteen years to determine my wife was incapable of keeping her promises. Learning after a year should be considered a blessing.
I left my mother’s home after an embarrassing one-sided conversation which lasted all evening. After fidgeting with the food for an hour and a half only to force myself to swallow a few small pieces, I finally left and rode my bike to Sienna’s home, praying I would find an answer.
What I found was an empty house free of any signs of life. All interior lights were off, the porch light was off, and although I spent nothing short of a half hour beating on the front and rear doors, no one answered the door.
Two women had been allowed into my life. In return for my loyalty I received two broken promises.
And one broken heart.
Bile rose in my throat. I raised my hand to knock again and realized I was shaking terribly. I inhaled a deep breath through my nose, gazed down at the toes of my boots, and exhaled. The bile rose again. I turned toward the driveway, walked to my bike, and lifted my leg over the seat. As I sat staring out into the street, I knew if I left it would be the last time I would ever pull away from her house.
She had done the unthinkable.
In Sienna’s own words, what had happened was the unexpected result of the natural development of life.
At least now, when it came to women, I would know what to expect.
Broken promises.
I started the motorcycle, pulled in the clutch lever, and kicked the lever into gear. After a long hesitation and a more than ample amount of time, I released the clutch and pulled out into the street.
Alone.
SIENNA
May 11, 2015
I opened my eyes, rolled onto my side, and tried to make sense of why my mouth felt like I had someone else’s tongue in it. My mouth was dry, I felt like I’d been ran over by a truck, and I could feel my heart beating in my eyes.
I drank way too much wine.
With the room Illuminated naturally by the setting sun, I narrowed my eyes and studied my surroundings as if they were unfamiliar. A quarter of a glass of wine sat on my desk beside my monitor, which had the screen saver zooming back and forth across the screen.
Fuck, I must have fallen asleep.
I stretched, walked to the kitchen, and took some Tylenol for my aching head. After finishing my glass of water, I walked to my bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. After a few seconds, I lowered my head into my hands and prayed for it to stop throbbing.
Son-of-a-bitch.
After a considerable amount of time, my head felt good enough to stand, and I walked to my desk. The black screen indicated I had been asleep for long enough that my computer shut down, which happened after fifteen minutes. I rubbed my eyes and stared at the monitor. Although I vaguely remembered writing a review, I didn’t really remember writing all of the reviews I was supposed to write, or exactly where I left off or what happened.
I wiggled the mouse, cleared the screen of the wiggling blurry ball, and stared at the review. It didn’t look familiar in the least. After a moment of staring blankly at the monitor, I refreshed the screen and stared. The review still seemed strange, as if it was written by someone else, but the time stamp at the side left me slightly puzzled.
14 hours, 38 min ago
Fourteen hours ago? How can that be?
I glanced at my watch. 7:22. I stared blankly at my watch, tried to make sense of what was going on, but couldn’t.
If it’s 7:22, the sun wouldn’t be setting. It would be totally sunny.
I walked to the bedroom window, opened it, and peered outside.
Fuck.
I ran to the kitchen and looked at the microwave.
7:21
Fuck. It can’t be.
After a frantic search, I found my purse, got my phone, and looked at the screen.
7:23 AM Mon, May 11
No…no…no, please God, no.
***
After repeated calls to his home went unanswered, I finally left a message, which was not at all what I wanted to do. Three hours later, and still having received no phone call from him, I was scared I had disappointed him much more than I expected.
I sat in his driveway frustrated that I had passed out from being drunk and missed dinner. I felt that I had not only had I let down Vince, Anita as well. She took so much pride in her preparation of the meals, arrangement of the table, and found such value in our conversations that my having missed dinner would have disappointed her greatly. I was sure of it.
“Gabriel’s Message,” by Sting played over the stereo as I sat and waited for Vince to return.
I can fix this.
Two and a half complete plays of the CD later, while “Do You Head What I Hear,” by Whitney Houston played, I hoped Vince would understand, but I had spent enough time playing ideas over and over in my head of how he may react, that I feared he would overreact.
As gentle as he seemed to be, and as kind as he was, his temper was beyond what most would describe as hot tempered. His ability to forgive was minimal, and his ability to forget was nonexistent.
Fuck.
I covered my head in my hands, realizing fully that my actions got me into the predicament I was in, and no matter what his reaction was, I could get through it one way or another.
An hour and a half later, and I had convinced myself that I fucked up and fucked up bad. As I sat in the silent car, I heard the unmistakable sound of his motorcycle coming down the street. I quick glance over my shoulder confirmed my suspicion, and I saw him coming up the street.
Breathe, Sienna, breathe…
His motorcycle slowed, he glanced to the side, and upon what appeared to be his recognition of my car in his driveway, he accelerated past the driveway and up the block.
Oh no you don’t.
I started the engine, shifted the car in reverse, and backed out of the driveway. As the car came to a stop in the street, he was a block away at the intersection at the end of the block.
Think you can outrun this motherfucker?
I shifted the car in drive and stomped the gas pedal to the floor.
Think again, Vince.
The car lunged forward, and the tires began to spin. As the smoke bellowed out from the rear fenders and the car continued to race forward at a very rapid pace, Vince pulled away from the stop sign and crossed through the intersection.
I released the gas pedal, frustrated that he hadn’t waited on me, and slowed down for the stop sign. Upon seeing no cars coming from either direction, I opted to stomp the gas pedal again and run through the intersection without stopping. Within a few seconds, I had caught up with Vince and was following close behind him.
After a slow-paced cat and mouse game that included covering half of the city and consuming no le
ss than another hour of time, it appeared Vince was riding back toward his house. Fifteen minutes later, and I followed him into the driveway and parked the car.
He parked the bike in the middle of the drive, shut it off, and sat on it staring at the garage. Upon realizing he had no intention of walking up to the car and talking to me, not only did I realize that he was angrier than I hoped he would be, but I knew that I was going to have to get out and talk to him about what had happened.
So much for having the comfort of my music and my car.
I pushed the car door open, cleared my throat, and walked alongside his motorcycle. “So, I was doing book reviews and I guess…”
“Save it,” he said flatly.
Still staring at the garage, he held his gaze for a moment. As his eyes shifted down toward the gas tank, he spoke again, and as he did, he closed his eyes.
“Just go,” he said.
Oh shit. He’s really mad.
“Do you want to come over later? Or maybe I could bring some pizza over here, and we could…”
He turned his head to the side and glanced upward. “No, Sienna, I don’t want to come over. You broke a promise. You left me sitting at my mother’s house like a god damned fool, and I had no idea…”
“Wait, I’m sorry, I just fell asleep…”
He raised his left hand in the air and held it between us. “Like I said, save it. I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
He pointed his finger at me, and then wagged it back and forth between us. “This. You and me. It’s over.”
A lump rose in my throat and I felt hot all over. My throat constricted and I fought to breathe. This couldn’t be happening. As I fought for each choppy breath I was able to eventually take, I was sure he didn’t mean what I felt like he meant.
“Wait. Over? What?” the words came out as if someone else had asked them.
He reached for the handlebars, started the motorcycle, and shook his head.
“Yeah, over. Don’t call, don’t come over, don’t write, don’t fuck with me. You broke a fucking promise, Sienna. I can’t do this again,” he said.
My eyes welled with tears, and as much as I wanted to say, to scream, to grab him, to apologize, to hug him, or just stand and talk, I was paralyzed.
He released the clutch, slowly pulled forward, and turned around in the yard. As I heard the sound of his motorcycle’s exhaust fade down the block, I realized he was gone. I stood in the driveway staring down at my feet and crying, incapable of doing anything else. In seemed like a terrible dream. As I cried and shook from the heartfelt pain, I prayed for answers. Answers never came because I believe there weren’t any; but eventually, through the many tears, it began to make sense.
In Vince’s mind, I was no different than Natalie. To him, the circumstances didn’t matter. The depth or the latitude of the broken promise, as far as he was concerned, was irrelevant. I had unknowingly done the unthinkable. I had broken a promise.
And I had done so to the one man who would probably never be able forgive me.
VINCE
May 24th, 2015
It had been two weeks since Sienna didn’t come to dinner, and I hadn’t been back to my mother’s house since. Partially embarrassed, somewhat disappointed, and totally heartbroken, I felt there was no way I would ever be able to face my mother again. I realized in time I would probably change my mind and be able to one day return, but I had no idea when that might be.
“I can remember when you said you’d never do anything with a bitch but shove her full of cock, remember that conversation?” I asked.
Axton crossed his arms, glared at me, and sighed. “What’s your fucking point?” he asked.
“I just made it,” I said. “Never thought I’d see the day you had an Ol’ Lady on the back of your bike.”
“She isn’t my Ol’ Lady, she’s a friend,” he said.
I shrugged my shoulders and turned away. “Doesn’t matter to me. You’ll learn your lesson sooner or later.”
“Hold up, I wasn’t done…”
“I’m done,” I said as I walked out of the office.
“God damn it, Vince, you can’t…”
I pushed the door closed, walked out into the shop, and fired up my bike. There was nothing I wanted to listen to about him trying to justify some chick who had been hanging off the back of his bike for the last two weeks. As I sat on the bike and waited for it to warm up, I lit a cigarette and took a long, slow drag.
If there was one thing I couldn’t stand, it was a hypocrite.
My parent’s had proven to be the only people who mattered to me that hadn’t eventually let me down. The two women in my life, one who I mistakenly thought I loved lied to me and broke a vow. The other, the only woman I truly loved, broke a promise and left me looking like a god damned fool.
Axton seemed like a hypocrite, talking out both sides of his mouth about women. One day he was talking shit about how if the MC wanted a man to have an Ol’ Lady they’d have issued one to all new prospects, and the next time I saw him he had an Ol’ Lady hanging off the back of his bike.
Axton may have been the president of the club, and I might have respected him, but he was no friend of mine. I had one friend, and only one, in my entire life.
We made a pact. A promise to each other. Best friends forever.
That’s what we said.
We walked down to the railroad tracks and put pennies on the tracks. Sitting in the row of trees along the tracks we would wait for the train to come smash the pennies, talking about our futures. He was going to be a doctor and I was going to be a fireman; at least when we talked about it the first time. For me, at least, each time we talked my desires changed. But he always wanted to be a doctor.
He said doctors saved lives.
To be able to take a dying person and redirect the hand of fate, allowing someone to live – when in the absence of your actions they would die – would be miraculous. As a young boy of six his desire to save lives didn’t make as much sense as it made when I was an adult, but the older I got the more I respected him for standing firm in his wishes.
A fireman, a police officer, a tree trimmer, and an ice cream man were a few of my childhood dream careers. I found it funny that as I grew older my view on what was important changed. In my opinion, at least as a boy of six or seven, an ice cream man was much better than a doctor. Although a doctor may be able to save lives, an ice cream man could make everyone happy, the sick and healthy.
We lived our lives convinced that a bank robber rode the train through town as a means of escape, and that during his way out of town, he had tossed a bag of money from the railcar. Convinced all we needed to do was find it, we scoured through the weeds and along the edges of the trees to find it. From when we were six until we were ten, we searched along the tracks almost every day, but never found anything.
One day, right before his tenth birthday, we were both convinced that was the day we would find the bag of money. With expectations running high, we searched like never before. As the day unfolded and the money was undoubtedly under the base of the very next tree, I asked what he was going to do with his share of the riches.
Walking along the edge of the wooden railroad ties while dragging his stick behind him, he shifted his eyes upward and in my direction. Three weeks older, and much wiser in my opinion, I walked along the top of the steel rail, towering above him. I continued to walk slowly, being careful not to lose my balance as I waited for him to respond.
After a few steps, he paused and began to tap his stick against the tracks. When he finally stopped tapping the rail, he responded. As he spoke, I continued my balancing act.
“Buy a new doctor,” he said.
I stopped and attempted to turn around without falling off the edge of the rail. Eventually I felt the need to speak more important and jumped down.
“Why would you need a new doctor?” I asked.
He cleared his throat, stared down at the tracks fo
r a long moment, and shifted his eyes out toward the tree line. “A cardiovascular pathologist. He’s in Texas.”
I’d never heard words that sounded so important, even out of an adult’s mouth, let alone a kid my age. Impressed at his intellect, but now concerned with why he would need an out of state doctor with such a name, I pressed him for more information.
“Why?” I asked.
He turned to face me and shrugged his shoulders. “He’s the best.”
It made sense. Who would want anyone that wasn’t the best at what they did? Satisfied with his answer, and knowing nothing of the real reason why he needed a doctor, I stepped onto the railing and waited for the command he always gave before we started our journeys.
“Lead the way?” he asked.
“Follow me,” I said.
We never found the bag of money, and Jackson never got to go to Texas. His heart stopped two weeks later, just before he turned ten years old.
The school shut down for his funeral, and it seemed the entire city attended. We searched for a spot to park the car for what seemed like forever, and after finding a place, walked along the sidewalk for much longer than Jackson and I ever walked along the tracks. In that time I thought of him, our friendship, the permanency of death; and about losing the only friend I ever had.
I wondered if the pain I felt in my heart was similar to the pain Jackson felt from the disease I learned he had. I decided as we walked into the funeral home that if I never befriended another person, I would never be forced to feel the pain again.
As the sound of my motorcycle’s exhaust echoed throughout the shop and I stared blankly out into the street, I realized I was wrong.
And I suspected this new pain, no differently than the pain I felt from the loss of my best friend, would only be able to be temporarily suspended and not totally eliminated. As an adult, I had learned it wasn’t a doctor or the ice cream man that caused the pain within me to subside, it was a machine.
And that machine was between my legs.
SIENNA
June 8th, 2015
I had waited a year for the day to arrive. Instead of a celebratory dinner and discussions of our fond memories as a couple, I sat alone under a blanket of pain. A month had passed since I last saw Vince, and although I hoped the pain would eventually stop, it hadn’t so much as decreased.
Money Shot: Selected Sinners MC Romance Page 17