by Jessie Cooke
“Yeah, he’s a cop.”
“You two been together long?”
“Not really. I’ve known them all for a long time. After we moved from the property next door, Mom and Dad bought a house down the street from the Bradys. Kyle was already grown then and I didn’t really get to know him well until Angel and I started law school together about six months ago. We’ve been dating a few months now.”
“You’re in law school?”
“Yeah.”
“That should make your dad happy.”
She smiled sadly. “So far, yes. What he’s not going to be happy about is that I have no interest in being a prosecutor. I want to be a defense attorney. He’ll hate that.” Cody couldn’t help but wonder if that was part of the reason why she wanted to do it. Her father had been controlling and overbearing when she was a kid. He worked for some big real estate law firm back then, and Cody only knew that because Hannah told him that part of the reason he was making them move was her fascination with Cody and the club, and the other part was that he’d been asked to put his hat in the running for district attorney that year. He hadn’t won, and Cody remembered being thankful for that when he was arrested and prosecuted. He doubted that Hannah’s father would have been willing to offer him any kind of deal. He had a strong bias against the club and Cody heard that while he was locked up, the man had run for the next election, won, and made cleaning up the “MC trash,” as he called it, from the streets of Hanover County his mission. Hannah continued, “Did you run into him when you had your…troubles?”
Cody shook his head and then with a smile said, “Thank God.” She laughed and nodded too.
“Yes, that probably is a really good thing. I’m glad that’s all over for you. It had to be terrible.”
“It was…not fun,” he said. “How did you know about it?” He often wondered about her, especially when he heard someone cursing her father’s name when he was in prison, but he was surprised that she remembered him so well and knew so much about him.
“I didn’t know about it until I met Angel. One day we were having lunch on campus and studying together and someone called another girl across the room. Her name was Harley. I guess it was obvious that name meant something to me, so Angel asked me about it and I told her the story of how I wrecked my bike and busted out two of my bottom teeth and when I told you my name you thought I was saying ‘Harley’ instead of ‘Hannah.’” She smiled at the memory.
“I always thought it fit you better anyways.”
“I hadn’t talked to anyone about those days for a long time. They were honestly the happiest of my life. It was nice when I discovered I could talk to Angel about it. I had no idea she was with your president. This is such a small little county.”
“That it is. Well, damn! I’m glad Angel found you. It’s so good to see you.”
“It’s really good to see you too, Cody.” She looked back over toward Angel and her brother. Kyle was waving her over. He shot Cody a glare in the process. Hannah sighed. “I’m sorry. He’s really a nice guy, but he’s a cop above all else and even though his sister lives here happily, he still doesn’t really trust you guys.”
Cody grinned at her as she stood up and said, “As well he probably shouldn’t.”
Hannah smiled and Cody gave her a wink and said, “Come back and see me, Harley.” She looked over at Kyle and back at him and said:
“I just might do that.”
20
Brewster and his dad rolled onto the ranch around dinnertime Friday night. There were just a handful of people at the clubhouse, and Cody introduced the men around and got them something to eat before he showed them where they’d be sleeping. Brew’s father introduced himself as Brewster Senior, not Scalper, and Cody wondered about that. While one of the club girls fixed them up with a plate of tacos that Tank had made, Cody went up to the bar to get them a beer. While he was there he overheard part of Beezy’s phone call.
“Nathan, Dax wants you down at juvenile lock-up like ten minutes ago.” The mention of juvenile lock-up and Nathan, the club’s attorney, almost had a PTSD-like effect on Cody. He fought through it and continued to eavesdrop. “Nah, it’s Michael…yes, again…something to do with possession with the intent to sell this time…hell if I know where he’s getting it—you ask him, maybe he’ll tell you.” Beezy was quiet for a long time for him and then he laughed and said, “That’s what Dax pays you those ridiculous big bucks for, asshole. Go do your job.” Beezy hung up the phone and shook his head.
“Trouble?” Cody asked him.
“Damn kids. You know, if it wasn’t for you damned kids getting yourselves into trouble these days, Dax might be able to actually run this fucking club.” Cody laughed and put his palms up.
“Hey, I haven’t been in trouble in eight years at least.”
Beezy laughed. “Yeah, when you do it, you do it right, you little fucker. Maybe you should go talk to this little idiot Michael and tell him what life’s going to be like for him when he finally does something Dax can’t pay his way out of.”
Cody nodded. “I wouldn’t mind talking to him.” He started to pick up the three beers the prospect had put in front of him and Beezy said:
“What’s the deal with the Commies in our clubhouse?”
“Brew, the younger guy, was my cellmate for a long time. He’s in town so they stopped by for a visit.”
Beezy made a face like he disapproved. “What’s the old man’s name? He looks familiar.”
Nervously, Cody said, “He goes by Brewster. He’s Brew’s old man.”
“What’s his biker handle?”
Shit. “Not sure,” Cody lied. “He introduced himself to me as Brewster. I’ll talk to you in a bit, Beezy. Let me know if I can do anything to help out with Michael.” Cody remembered Michael, vaguely. When Cody got locked up, Michael was only six or seven years old. He was a cute kid who always wanted to hang out with the big guys. Cody and Jimmy let him tag along when they were working on their dirt bikes or just hanging out on the ranch. His old man was alive then and the kid was pretty well taken care of. Since Cody got out he heard that the kid’s mother was hooked on dope and Michael had been on the fast track to prison life. He was another example that proved Macy was partially right about raising kids on the ranch. They seemed to turn out like him, and Michael, more often than not.
He took the beers back to the table and found Brew with his arm around Lucy. She smirked at Cody and he tried not to roll his eyes. If she thought he cared that Brew was going to screw her tonight, she could think again.
“So, why aren’t you wearing a patch?” Brew’s father asked him as he took a sip of his beer.
“I’m being brought in as a prospect tomorrow,” Cody told him. “It’s been an adjustment being back. I finally got my shit together now…kind of.” He grinned and Brewster, the father, laughed.
“Yeah, I’m forty-two and I’m still trying to get my shit together. We stopped by to see my mother on the way here—she had plenty to say about that, didn’t she, Brew?”
Brew drew his attention away from Lucy and grinned. “Yeah, Grandma holds a grudge, that’s for sure. She had a list of everything Dad did wrong since he was five. I think she was about to start on me before we took off.”
“Where’s she live?”
“In Boston,” Brew said. “Dad grew up there.”
Cody was curious about the connection between Scalper and Stitch. The fact that Scalper grew up in Boston might explain how they knew each other. “Oh, cool. How’d you end up in Cali?”
“I just needed to get the hell out of here. Me and the old lady moved out there when she was pregnant with Brew and I joined up with the Commies. Best move I ever made.”
“Did you ride with a club out here?”
“Nah, Hey, beautiful, how about you get me another one of those tacos?” He smiled at Lucy and she stood up and took his plate, gave Cody another nasty look, and went into the kitchen. Brew watched her ass until it disappeared.
“Shit, she’s hot. Have you had that one?” he asked Cody.
“Yeah, first night out of the joint.”
“So, am I in for a wild night?”
Cody smiled. “Yes, you are.”
“Fuck yeah, maybe I’ll turn in early. Which one you have your eye on, Dad?”
Scalper was looking over toward the bar and as soon as Brew asked him that he smiled and said, “I think I just found her.” Cody and Brew both looked in the direction he was looking and Cody choked on his beer. It was Macy. She was talking to the prospect behind the bar and had her back to them. She would be absolutely mortified to find out he thought she was one of the club girls.
“Sorry, Brewster, that one’s not on the menu.”
“Fuck me. She got an old man? She’s not wearing a vest or a patch.”
“Did you see the big guy doing the cooking when we went through the kitchen?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s her father. She’s lived here most of her life, but she’s most definitely not a club girl.” Cody watched as she turned around from the bar. She was smiling, until her eyes landed on him. She turned away quickly and headed for the door. Cody watched her go and when he turned back to his friends Brew said:
“That’s the one you mooned over when we were locked up, right?” Cody nodded. “She’s hot,” Brew said. Lucy was back with the tacos and she looked to see who they were talking about. She looked like she had something to say, but one look from Cody was all it took for her to change her mind.
After dinner Lucy took Brew up to the guest room, and Cody and Brewster shot a few rounds of pool and had a few more beers. Cody tried to get Brewster to talk about his past on the East Coast more, but it seemed that he'd said all he had to say on the subject. By the time they were on their third round, May, one of the older club girls, set her sights on the older man. Cody was soon left on his own when he took her up to the other guest room. The clubhouse was full, but he didn’t feel like shooting the shit with any of the guys, or brushing off the club girls that liked to flit around him like flies. Instead, he went and got one of the fat blunts he knew they kept behind the bar and took it out back. He’d just sat down in the lounge chair and lit it up when the door opened and Harley walked out.
“Hey.”
“Hi. One of the guys in there told me you might be out here. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Hell no. It’s good to see you.” He was about half drunk, a lot horny, and as much as he wasn’t interested in making his way through the club girls, he’d be down to fuck Harley in a heartbeat. She’d changed clothes since he saw her earlier. She was in a pair of faded jeans now with frayed holes down the front and a white t-shirt with a Harley logo in silver bling across the front. Her hair was pulled over to the side and braided, and she had on black boots that came up to her knees and had a three-inch heel. She looked hot. “Sit down.”
Harley took the other seat and then smiled when she saw Cody holding the blunt, still unlit, in his hand. “Go ahead and light it, I won’t turn you in, I promise.”
He grinned and brought the cigar-wrapped cannabis up to his lips. He held it between his lips as he lit it and inhaled. Alcohol didn’t have the calming effect on him that it had on other people. It seemed to only add to his anxiety, and that night he had plenty of it, worrying about what would happen between Stitch and Scalper the next day. The weed calmed him down, though, almost instantly. He held it in Harley’s direction when he finished his drag and she surprised him by taking it and inhaling a long drag, before handing it back. She held it in for a long time and when she finally breathed it out she said:
“Thanks.”
“So what are you doing back? Got a study group with Angel or something?”
“Nope. Kyle had to work tonight and my roommate had her boyfriend over and I was bored. I thought I’d come out and see you. You don’t mind, do you?” He didn’t mind. He wasn’t sure he was sober enough to behave himself, but he sure as hell didn’t mind.
“No, of course I don’t mind. You want a beer?”
“Nah, I’ll take another hit off that blunt though.” He smiled and handed it to her. She took a hit and handed it back before saying, “So what was it like?”
“What was what like?”
“Prison? Is it like you see on the movies and television?”
“I don’t know, I guess, kind of. It’s boring mostly. It’s so fucking boring that your mind goes numb after a while.”
“Were you in general population?”
“No, they kept me in the SHU the whole time because of my affiliation. I wasn’t even a prospect at the time, but because of who my old man was and the fact that Dax was my legal guardian when I went in, they didn’t want to take any chances, I guess.”
“You still plan on being president some day?”
Cody smiled. He told everyone that when he was a kid. Someday when Dax got too old, he’d take over. The problem was that when he was a kid, Dax seemed a lot older. Cody doubted Dax would be ready to retire until he was too old to ride, which was probably forty years down the road. “Yeah, if Dax doesn’t live forever. So let’s talk about you. How is it dating a cop?”
She laughed. “Just like dating anyone else, I guess. He’s not available a lot, he’s always working. He’s a good guy, though, and I love the family.”
“Sounds boring.”
She laughed again. “Life isn’t a series of constant excitements, Cody Miller.”
“Why the hell not, Harley…Yates? You’re the one that taught me life was supposed to be about having fun. Did you grow a stick up your butt over the past eleven years?”
He could tell that she was trying not to laugh as she indignantly said, “I grew up.”
Cody grinned. “I bet you haven’t ever tried…riding on the back of a real Harley, have you?”
She did smile then at the “haven’t ever tried” and said, “Yes, I have. Kyle has one.”
Cody burst out laughing. “You’ve ridden with the cop. I’ll just bet that was a blast.”
“It was. It was a lot of fun.”
“Where’d he take you, out for pizza?”
Her face turned red as she said, “Burgers.”
“So he gave you a ride in town and I’ll just bet he obeyed every speed law too, huh?”
“Shut up.”
He was still laughing. “A real biker would have taken you on a ride through the foothills, opened it up, and made it vibrate between your thighs.” He thought he saw her shudder. “He’d go just fast enough that you’d have to put your arms all the way around his waist and hug up to his back so tightly that not even air could get between you. He’d take the curves smooth, but fast enough to get your heart racing…”
“Stop talking about it and let’s go!”
“Really?” Cody and his big mouth! It was fun flirting with her. But he hadn’t had anyone on the back of his Harley yet.
“You ever know me to back down from a challenge?” He had to admit that when he knew her, she never had. She was the one making the challenge 99% of the time.
“I can’t say as I’ve ever seen that happen, Harley.”
“Okay then, let’s go.” Cody had a feeling he’d live to regret it. He had one hell of a buzz and he wasn’t a good enough rider yet to have her on the back. But his impulsiveness, coupled with his newfound lust for Harley and the alcohol and the weed…they all egged him on. Besides, there had always been something about her that made him thirst for excitement. He stood up and said:
“Let’s go.” She giggled and grabbed his hand and he led her out toward the shop. They were almost there when she stopped suddenly and said:
“You smell like beer.”
“Been drinking.”
“And weed.”
“Been smoking.”
“We shouldn’t do this now, should we?”
“Probably not.”
A slow, mischievous smile spread across her face. “I haven’t been drinking and
I only smoked a little. I’ll drive.”
That cracked Cody up. “You’ve had a ride or two with the cop and you think you can drive a Hog?”
She rolled her eyes. “Not the bike…but have you ever gone over a hundred miles an hour in a car?” She pulled him toward the front of the clubhouse and the parking lot. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw it. It was a 1967 midnight blue Mustang with custom wheels and a custom paint job. The outside was dope but when she opened the hood, Cody was salivating. It had a ProCharger F3 reverse-mounted supercharger stuck dead center in front of the performance-built 580-inch-big block blowing into a single four-barrel carburetor. Cody was speechless. He’d only ever seen anything like it in the car magazines he’d looked at in prison. When he wasn’t mooning, as Brew put it, over Macy, working out, or watching television in prison, he was reading magazines. Sometimes it was porn, but a lot of what he read were car and motorcycle magazines. He might not know how to drive it, but he sure as hell knew what he was looking at and it was a thing of beauty.
“Fuck me. She’s gorgeous.”
“Isn’t she?”
“Where the hell did you get this?”
“My uncle races. It’s one of his.”
“He lets you just…drive it around?”
“Sometimes, and sometimes he’s out of town and I ‘borrow’ it.”
21
“Shit, Harley. You’re as ornery as ever, aren’t you?”
She dangled the keys in front of him. “You wanna call me names, or you want to take me for a drive?”
“You’re going to let me drive it?”
She shrugged. “Why not?”
“Fuck” was all Cody could think to say. He was speechless. It wasn’t until he took the keys out of her hand that he remembered…he didn’t exactly know how to drive. Shit. “Hey, Harley.”
“Yeah?” She was already on her way around to the passenger side.
“I don’t have a license to drive a car.”
Peals of feminine laughter floated through the air. When she caught her breath, she said, “I forgot you got locked up so young. Do you know how to drive?”