BIKER DADDY_The Chain Gang MC

by Claire St. Rose

  Zoya tried not to smile. He was making light of the situation, but there was no way around the elephant in the middle of the room. “My parents,” she replied soberly. “Micah, I want this…I want this as much as you do, but we can’t ignore the fact that my family will be adamantly against this union.”

  “At the risk of sounding insensitive, I’m not marrying them, Zoya. I’m marrying you.” He clasped her hands and leaned in closer. “I never imagined we’d get this far with the odds we’ve faced in the short time we’ve known each other. But, now that we’ve made it to this point, I can’t close this chapter of my life, because my story is intertwined with yours. We are meant to be. Sweetheart, neither of us expected this. You’re looking at a guy who had no intentions of ever tying the knot. I know you made it clear that I shouldn’t expect a future with you. I accepted that in the beginning. Then, I realized how impossible it is for me to live without you.”

  She touched his face. “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true,” he replied, placing his hand atop hers against his cheek. “Zoya, during the time frame you and I were separated after your brother told you not to see me anymore, I tried valiantly to move on. There are some things in life you can’t move away from, good and bad things. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m not capable of walking away from us. Not now, not then, not ever. Whatever I have to do to make this,” he touched her ring finger, “a reality, then I’ll do it. I’m going to talk to your parents.”

  She sighed. “I have to break it to them gently first.”

  “Zoya.”

  “Micah, I have to. This isn’t something we can just spring on them.”

  “Fine, love. You talk to them first.” A slow grin split his face again. “But, I take that as a ‘yes.’”

  ***

  “It’s too early for this, Maman.” Miad pulled his comforter over his head and turned his back to her.

  “It’s one in the afternoon. You should be up anyway, putting in applications for a job instead of lying around in this filth.” She had waited until Musa was at work for the discussion that had to be had. “Give me back the credit card I gave you,” Taba demanded.

  She snatched away the comforter and threw it to the floor with the rest of the dirty clothes Miad had piled beside his bed. There were takeout boxes on the nightstand. She spied a liquor bottle between a cushion of the sofa he had crammed along with his bedroom furniture into the cramped basement after losing his apartment. Miad angrily pulled the covers back up, and she yanked them away again.

  Their eyes locked, and she read the stubbornness in his, but there was a stubbornness in hers, too. She wasn’t about to be denied. “I will not fund your addiction. I will not finance your problem. Do you understand?” Taba’s voice wavered, and her lips trembled. She swept away a tear. “Now, give me my card. I know you have no money of your own, Miad. You’ve been using what little money of mine to get drunk. Zoya told me you need rehab. I think you just need a healthy dose of reality. You want to drink? Fine. Get a job and get your own money to buy a drink.”

  “You would believe Zoya over me? Truly, Maman?” Miad sounded incredulous, but Taba held out her hand insistently. “You know nothing! You know only Zoya’s lies,” he growled.

  His head was throbbing, and his mouth was dry. His irritation level was at peak. If not for his hangover, he would gladly reveal to Taba that Zoya had secrets of her own, but the pounding at the base of his skull wouldn’t relent. He wanted to be clearheaded when he let that little tidbit of information slip. He needed Taba and Musa’s help to secure a marriage between Zoya and Javid, which meant he had to at least pretend to play by the rules. Glaring, Miad yanked his wallet out of the nightstand drawer and shoved his mother’s credit card into her hands.

  “For the record,” he said as he sat up, clutching his head, “Zoya is misleading you. Ask yourself why she’d be trying to make you take a closer look at me. Could it be because she wants you to take your eyes off of her? Hmm?”

  Taba tucked the card into the pocket of her apron. She pointed at him and turned to the basement stairs, shuffling tiredly toward the steps. “I only want what’s best for you.”

  “I forgive you. For misjudging me. I’m going to prove to you that Zoya is lying about me. You’ll see. I don’t need your credit card for alcohol, because I haven’t been drinking. I’m a changed man!” he barked.

  Taba nodded, trudging up the steps. “Yes, show me.” She knew he didn’t have the money to pay for liquor or beer. If what Zoya had said was true, soon enough money would start coming up missing again. Taba closed the basement door behind her. “Show me,” she murmured again to herself. She actually hoped he was telling the truth.

  Miad scowled at the wall after she left. She had taken his last remaining access to money. He knew there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d start working for someone else again. If Miad couldn’t be his own boss, he wasn’t interested in slaving under someone else. Poker came naturally to him because he was a master at schooling his facial expressions and he had had a fine stream of good luck for a while. Now, it seemed his luck was running out.

  Without the few hundred dollars his mother kept on the card available at his disposal, he had to resort to other means of scraping together enough cash to see if he could win some money back. “C’mon, c’mon, think!” He pounded his temples, eyes scanning the room for anything of value. He had very little left. When Miad had a steady job at his cousin’s shop, he hadn’t earned much, but he always had enough. It was unfortunate that he’d been caught taking money from the cash register. Sighing, he picked up the watch, the chains and rings he’d been wearing the night of his arrest, things he had won in various games of chance from dice to dominos. Altogether, he could probably get enough from pawning the jewels to start him off.

  Miad decided instead of gambling against the handful of friends he had remaining, all of whom he owed money already, he’d go down to the race tracks and place a few bets. He didn’t bother changing, which was unlike him. He smoothed down his wrinkled, dirty suit and stepped into his puke stained shoes, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the stench. He pocketed the jewelry and shuffled out the basement door that led outside, ambling to his car to take the short drive into town.

  If he didn’t get the money for Javid, his life might very well be in danger. Thinking on his options, Miad only saw two. Either he won back enough of the ten grand to appease Javid or he convinced Zoya to turn from her wicked ways and marry the good doctor. Chuckling mirthlessly, he fumbled for the start button and drove off toward the pawn shop. Better to start with the option which was most likely to give a return. He just prayed luck was on his side. He couldn’t afford to lose. His life depended on it.

  ***

  The sleek, glossy beasts were lined at the starting gate, their jockeys perched upon their backs. Miad peered anxiously through his binoculars and glanced down at his card for the post time, making sure he was watching the right race. He had already lost close to two hundred dollars. “This better be the winner,” he grumbled, putting the binoculars back to his bleary eyes.

  He had been at the tracks all evening, and he reeked of cheap beer, but Miad was more preoccupied with the horses on the track than his appearance. It seemed there was something about alcohol, even cheap beer, which lowered his standards. Ever since he had started drinking again, he had begrudgingly noticed his fashion sense and poise going downhill. The more money he lost, the more debt he acquired, the less important it seemed to get snazzy unless he absolutely had to. He had wasted a perfectly good suit on that shitty dinner with Javid.

  On this round, Miad had bet on the favorite, having watched the blow outs before the race and determined Gwen’s Park Champ had a higher likelihood of beating the rest of the horses in the same heat. It seemed a sure bet.

  The gun fired to signal the start of the race, and the horse shot out of the gates. Miad pressed forward over the railing, yelling his head off for Gwen’s Park, as his
pick surged forward and took the lead. The chestnut horse flew down the track and sent up clods of dirt in his wake, while his rippling muscles bulged and glistened in the sunlight. Miad waved his fist, urging the jockey to be more aggressive. He could see his horse slipping to second place as the racers sprinted through the first curve of the furlong.

  “You get ‘em, Gwen’s!”

  Suddenly, the horse bolted slightly to the left, although he quickly regained his footing; but, the brief misstep was all it took for two more racers to zip past. “No!” Miad cried.

  He watched in disbelief as his pick, the crowd favorite, the horse who should’ve been the winner, came in at fourth place. Miad paced back and forth in the nearly empty stands as another one of his bets fell short of his prediction and he lost more of his small sum of cash. “Fuck!” he shouted. A few heads turned, but the interest was short-lived, and Miad didn’t care about causing a scene anyway. Most of the ragtag bunch lingering at the tracks in middle of the day on a weekday were the same as him, gamblers trying to get a fix. He shoved the remaining seventy-five dollars in his pocket and gave up before he left with nothing.

  Grumbling angrily, he pushed away from the rail and wove his way through the thin crowd and out of the arena. He made it to his car, feeling overheated and overwhelmed, but having a need to keep going. There had to be some other way he could get the money. He still had seventy-five dollars left.

  His stomach growled. Miad knew his mother probably had dinner cooked at home, but he grew weary of sitting at his parents’ table waiting for hand-outs. He powered on his car and drove aimlessly through town, ignoring his hunger. He couldn’t ignore his thirst, however. The more streets he traveled, the less hope he had of making good on his debt to Javid and the more worried he became about what might happen if he didn’t.

  If Miad could explain the anxiety, he would say it was like having bees in his blood stream. It wasn’t just the problem with Javid that made him antsy. It was his very existence. He thought about the totality of his life, as he pulled into a liquor store and stared up at the flickering neon lights. He knew with his potential and his capabilities he should have made something more of himself. He could’ve been a businessman. He could’ve been a lawyer or doctor. He hadn’t gone that route because…what? Because he’d been too busy having a good time. Now, here he was in his mid- to late thirties, and the good times were fewer and farther between.

  The schmucks who’d gotten with the program and gotten degrees were out handling business. Schmucks like Javid—although admittedly the young doctor came from a wealthy family and had a father who wasn’t stingy about taking care of his son the way Musa was. Even the laborers and tool pushers Miad had once sneered at were out making money.

  Meanwhile, there he was sitting in front of a liquor store with only seventy-five dollars to his name and no prospect of getting any more money anytime soon. There was a wealthy, spurned homosexual out to get him, his sister was being a harlot, and his mother was being difficult. His hands were shaking from not having had a drink all day. It was enough to make a man want to drink.

  Miad shoved open the car door and climbed out, smoothing his suit. He went inside and purchased enough alcohol to get him through the night, leaving with thirty dollars left. When he got back in the car, he dug out his cellphone. With the situation with Javid, it was time for plan B.

  “Hello? Javid, old friend! Yes, yes, I spoke with my sister. She has agreed to renew the courtship,” he lied. Miad tore off the plastic seal with his teeth, as he ignored Javid’s complaints about not wanting to marry his sister anymore. The promise of alcohol was more interesting, and he struggled to unseal the bottle. “Of course, a good wife, an obedient wife is a blessing. She’ll make a very good wife. You’ll see. I’ll fix all this,” Miad replied blithely. Over Javid’s protests, Miad hung up the phone. He twisted off the cap of the vodka and turned it up to gulp down a swig. Wiping his mouth and smacking his lips, savoring the burn, he started his car and got back on the road as he sipped. He was going to get Zoya to marry Javid by any means necessary.

  CHAPTER 22 Callie shrieked at the top of her lungs when she saw the ring. Zoya collapsed on the living room sofa next to her best friend, giggling in amusement at Callie’s reaction. “He asked you to marry him?! So, that’s why you ran off in the middle of the night last night! Oh my friggin’ god! Please tell me you said yes!” The tattooed blonde grabbed Zoya’s hand and turned it from side to side under the afternoon light filtering through the blinds and shrieked again.

  “I told him not yet,” she admitted. Callie groaned and stamped her feet against the floor dramatically.

  “You’re in time-out, Zoya. I don’t ever want to speak to you again unless you call that poor man up right this instant and tell him the answer is yes, yes, and more yes!”

  Zoya couldn’t contain her happiness because, despite her inability to blatantly accept Micah’s proposal, the fact that he was that serious about being with her sent thrills of joy through her very being. She closed her eyes with a dreamy sigh and lounged back against the sofa cushions only to be shoved by Callie. When she opened her eyes, her friend was glaring at her with a combination of pretend and real ire.

  Callie had been prodding Zoya to be with the biker from the day the two had met. She couldn’t stand to see her friend miss out on the man of her dreams just to mollify her overbearing parents and intrusive older brother. “You can’t keep him waiting, Zoya. If you let a guy like that stay on the market, someone else will come right along and snatch him up,” Callie argued.

  “I don’t have to worry about that,” Zoya replied confidently. “And, you don’t have to worry about me keeping him waiting. I’m going to talk to my parents.”

  Callie shot up from the sofa and put her hands on her hips. “Ha! Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” She looked down at Zoya.

  Zoya rose as well. “I mean it this time. If I don’t do it, I’m halfway convinced Micah will try to do it himself, and that would be disastrous. The point is, you’re the best friend in the whole wide world for taking me to that infernal biker bar. If it wasn’t for you, Callie, I never would’ve met him.”

  Callie beamed and preened. “Well, naturally, I have superb taste in hang-out spots,” she said with a laugh. She walked into the kitchen and pulled down a bottle of champagne she had been holding onto until one of them graduated. Celebrating Zoya’s engagement to the sexy biker seemed a better cause. She burst into the living room with the bottle and two plastic champagne flutes. “Fuck it! I’m just gonna name it and claim it and say you are as good as married, girlfriend! Whether your parents are ready or not, Mr. Whitfield doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to take no for an answer.” Callie popped the cork and started pouring up.

  “He’s not. Oh, Callie, I’m so excited I could just…just explode.”

  Handing Zoya a flute, Callie asked, “So, when are you gonna break the news?” Zoya looked away and sighed. Callie groaned again. “I don’t like that look. That look says you’ll tell them sometime in the near never. You know, you have to face it. You’re with him. You love him. You want to be with him, and your parents need to know that sooner rather than later.”

  “Right, it’s just the timing is all wrong right now. I actually left last night because I got a call from my Baba. Miad had apparently been missing since the weekend. I tried to tell Maman about his drinking getting out of hand. Of course, she turned it around on me. I told her I’d seen him drunk around town, and she wanted to know what sort of places I was going to that I’d run into my drunk brother. She forbade me from telling Baba and said I was over here living in sin. It’s infuriating. It’s like Miad could rob a bank right in front of them, and they wouldn’t even notice it for trying to keep an eye on me.”

  “Oh, honey, I can only imagine,” Callie replied, patting her arm. “You did the right thing by telling her, though. Just imagine if you tried to keep that a secret and something bad happened to him. He showed back up, right?”


  “That’s the thing. He was in jail!”

  “In jail?”

  “Arrested for public drunkenness or something like that. I had to get Micah to bail him out. Maman and Baba have no clue that’s where he was, and I couldn’t very well tell them my non-Islamic boyfriend rescued Miad.”

  “But, what if you did, Zoya? If you told your parents how much Micah has done to help you and take care of you, they’ll have to admit he’s a good guy. I know they will.”

  “I’m glad you know that, because I don’t,” Zoya scoffed. “Either way, I’ve already told Micah I’ll talk to them. Ready or not, I have to do it. I’m just trying to wait for some of the hoopla to die down. Maman finally came back around and said she believed me about Miad’s drinking but told me she’d handle it herself instead of seeking out rehab, even though I stated I’d take a job to help pay whatever extra expenses are incurred. I want my brother back, the real Miad, not this monster he’s become.”