Winter

by Michelle Love

  Paco’s going to surprise her by going through Vegas after the rally and marrying her to make it all good and legal. I told him he should keep it easy to get the hell out of if it goes south.

  One never knows how a relationship is going to work out. If I would’ve married the first piece of ass I got, then I’d probably be dead right now instead of cruising down the highway on a cool August morning.

  Sandra Moore was my first love when I started college. We dated all through college. I kept her around mostly because she made the cut with my family.

  She was from an upscale family and a law student. So much money no one can count it all, just like our family. And snooty to her very core.

  I got lucky, and she found what she called a real lawyer. He took her off my hands and after the initial shock of being dumped, I found myself very relieved to be rid of her.

  Playing the field in the New York scene was okay. But when you have to maintain such high standards to keep from losing your trust fund, you can’t find many women who like the things I do.

  After three years of that crap, I found the love of motorcycles and it took me no time at all to find this gang who took me in quickly. Like a very dysfunctional family of sorts.

  There are some assholes, just like in any family. But there are some good people too. And they all accept each other for who they are. No judging is done by anyone.

  I don’t think it’s allowed!

  We’re getting close to the town we’ve been waiting for. You can tell that by the way the whole cluster of bikes begins to speed up. Our hearts are beginning to pound in all of our chests as the excitement starts to key up.

  A cold beer and a hot woman sitting on my lap are close at hand and I find myself getting nearly giddy over that fact. Not much longer until I get to put my little vacation from boredom into play.

  Girls, you better watch out!

  My bike makes a little bump and then I feel something odd happen. It went down a little. Something doesn’t feel right.

  Shit!

  Looks like my plan of a cold beer and a hot girl will have to wait for me to stop off at one of the many garages they have in town.

  This would be how it fucking starts for me!

  This whole year has been a giant cluster-fuck. I singlehandedly lost a major client a few months ago when I dared to ask him how he could live with himself.

  He’s a rich son-of-a-bitch and bought the rights to manufacture the main drug used in treating AIDS. He jacked the price up so high that most people with the disease couldn’t afford to buy it.

  He came to our firm to seek help in keeping the product at the price he set as he was being asked by the federal government to reduce the price to what it was when he originally purchased the licensing.

  Wanting our help in keeping his price, he came to us and gave a very healthy sum of money to the firm to help him. At the meeting we had with the asshole, I told him off.

  My grandfather was pissed, but my father and brother, though silent, agreed with me. So I managed not to get cut off without a cent and retained my place in the family firm.

  But it was a nightmarish few months with my grandfather giving me the cold shoulder.

  I know that doesn’t sound so bad, but my grandfather knows how to make the cold shoulder really hurt.

  For instance, he bought the entire legal staff their own individual, personal drivers for a whole year. Not me, though. He also brought in gourmet lunches on Fridays, but I was not invited.

  He would walk right past me, telling everyone hello who came before and after me. That kind of shit!

  He finally stopped a few weeks ago and things went back to normal. The man can keep that up for a very long time. It’s probably taking years off his life.

  That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

  Around the bend we come, and my bike is getting lower and lower. I’m glad it waited until we were almost here to do this. The first large bar we see is where our leaders pull in and I pull up alongside Rod and his wife.

  We all cut off our bikes. “Hey, Rod, I’m going to catch up with you guys in a little while. I have to find a shop to see what the hell is going on with my ride.”

  He gives me the thumbs up so I turn the bike back on and take off to find what looks like a reputable motorcycle repair shop. I don’t want to get screwed here.

  Not too far away from the bar, I see a sign that says, Phil’s Motorcycle Garage. The sign under it says he specializes in Harleys. So I think this might be the best place to at least start at.

  Especially since the bike just keeps on getting lower.

  And there doesn’t seem to be a lot of people in the parking lot. Only one other bike is parked here. An older model Sportster. Looks like a chick bike.

  Maybe there’s some hot chick in here who can sit on my lap while I wait for the bike to be repaired!

  I turn the bike off and get off to walk it into the large bay with the metal garage door opened on it. It’s dimly lit in here and hard to see. But I don’t see anyone yet.

  Stopping to get my cellphone out of my pocket, I check the time.

  Shit! It’s noon. Lunch time.

  I’ll probably have to wait here for a damn hour before I can get any help. The hits just keep on coming. Nineteen hours of riding to get to some real fun and I have this little hitch in the scene.

  I hope this isn’t a sign of things to come with this trip. It’s supposed to be fun after all. Not headache after headache.

  A group of motorcycles blast past the garage and the entire bay vibrates with the loud noise they make. It makes my heart skip a beat. I love the growl of a pack of bikes.

  I just want to be out there, having a great time with my brothers from the gang, sipping some cold suds. Instead, I’m in a dank and dark garage seeking mechanical attention for a bike that shouldn’t need it yet, it’s so damn new.

  After the last few bikes in that group get past I listen hard and hear some tapping. Maybe a computer keyboard.

  But as I look around, I don’t see anyone. So I put the kickstand down and leave my bike in the bay and make my way up a set of steps.

  A smell wafts past my nose and I stop and breathe it in. Fresh flowers are what it smells like. That and clean linen.

  What a misplaced scent in a motorcycle repair shop. Oil and gasoline are predominating, but that little trickle of wonderful manages to seep in.

  I smile for no reason other than it smells good and seems out of place in this very rugged town. Even most of the chicks around here have remnants of road dust and the oil and gas mix that comes with a pack of bikes and their exhaust systems.

  The alcohol helps one not to care much about the smell of what’s on your lap. The feeling is what matters the most.

  More tapping and a bit of low muttering I can hear. It’s a woman.

  What kind of woman would be working in this grease pit?

  I prepare myself to see a Hun of a female. I’ll try hard not to react too unfavorably when I see the brute.

  “Hey!” I shout.

  But nothing comes back as my voice echoes off the metal walls of the garage.

  I wait a moment then shout again, but still nothing. I’m sure I hear someone typing, though. Then the sound of a phone ringing fills the air and a female voice mutters again, “Shit!”

  Maybe she can’t hear well either. Ugly and deaf, yikes!

  So I shout very loud in my best New Yorker voice, “Hey, a little help here, I ain’t got all day!”

  Chapter 2

  ANGEL

  With the mechanics gone for lunch, the garage will be somewhat quiet for the next hour so I can actually get some work done. Parts need to be ordered and I’ve yet to do that as I was quietly watching Cletus work on a two-year-old Honda all morning long.

  I’m in my last year of college. At the end of May next year, I’ll be the proud holder of a Master’s Degree in Engineering. To design motorcycles is what I long to do for my career.

  Hopefully, n
ot too terribly long from now, I can do just that. But for now, I’m working part-time in my uncle’s motorcycle repair shop.

  It’s helping me get some hands on experience with the miraculous machines. Not that the mechanics let me actually touch any of the customer’s bikes, I do watch them, though.

  As long as I stay quiet and don’t ask any questions, they let me watch. I’ve learned a lot by working here the last few years.

  I grew up on the outskirts of Sturgis, South Dakota. Motorcycles kind of come with life here. I got my first one when I was fifteen. Uncle Phil gave it to me.

  He was married when he was younger. No kids, though. His wife died when she was only thirty-two. They had a real love, and he never saw fit to take another wife.

  So my sister and I became like his kids in a way. He managed to get me interested in bikes, but my younger sister is much too girly.

  The latest bike he gave me a few years ago is a Harley Sportster XL883L in black. It’s cool enough and runs great.

  My parents moved off to California last year, leaving me alone here as my sister married a marine and they now live in France. What they’re doing over there is top secret, or so she told me when I asked what the hell they need our marines in France for.

  Uncle Phil keeps an eye on me. I don’t get into trouble, though.

  I stay out of the many bars there are here. I don’t really date as I think men all suck and make you think they love you but then leave you with no reason why.

  Yeah, I have men issues. My first love was a hot biker with badass tattoos and a beard that was just the right amount of scratchy when he kissed me.

  I thought what we had was real. He made me believe I was the girl for him. We were together for three years before he told me one day he wanted to see the world.

  I was all for it. Thought I could finish college when we got done with our world adventure.

  Only I didn’t realize he meant he wanted to go alone. I had to watch him pack up and kiss the top of my head then he told me he hoped I had a very nice life.

  A nice life!

  Words couldn’t come to me as he left. I was dumb-struck. I watched him ride off into the sunset and I never heard from the guy, I thought loved me as much as I thought I loved him, again.

  That was a couple of years ago. I’m over him and guys in general. Who needs a man, anyway?

  I have my own little house I rented at the edge of town. My little Poodle, Maltese mix pup, accurately named, Cuddles, keeps me protected. And thanks to modern technology, there are machines to do what a man can for me.

  One day I will make enough money to take complete care of myself. The paltry amount I make here is enough to get me by. But just that.

  With my diploma in hand, I hope to change my financial outlook in just over a year or so. I have my plan for the future. Men not need apply.

  I used to dabble at the bars a little now and again, but the few guys I thought would be random one-night stands all somehow wanted more than that from me. So I stopped going to the bars.

  Work and home are all I do now. My classes are all online and only once a month do I have to go and check in with a few of my professors. Life is good and things couldn’t be better.

  I’ve learned how to keep men at bay with a ‘don’t fuck with me’ attitude. As one can imagine, I get a ton of hot biker guys who come in here with their broken motorcycles. And a lot of them hit on me.

  I hit back, though, and not in a nice way!

  There’s no reason to act as if I might actually go out with them. I won’t.

  When what’s-his-ass left me, I refuse to say his name ever again, I kind of broke down.

  He taught me some things. First, never let yourself fall into a deep love. You lose some of yourself in that person. When they leave, like they all do eventually, you lose that piece of you too.

  The second thing he taught me is how to be tough as hell. You have to be or men will come in and tell you nice things. You’ll believe their lying asses and it will end with you crying yourself to sleep way too many nights.

  The third thing he taught me was how meaningless sex is. I thought what we did was special. I mean he and I found we liked the kinky stuff. A little BDSM was fun from time to time.

  He’d let me be the boss sometimes, and I’d let him be the boss too. Fun, and I thought deep. I was a dumbass. It wasn’t deep to him. We didn’t share a special bond.

  It was just sex, and it meant nothing.

  And the handful of times I did it after him were very meaningless. And the guys were kind of pussy-like when I smacked them with the belt. Only one let me handcuff him to the bed.

  Wimps!

  And not one of them would smack my ass hard enough to make a difference. They were all, ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

  How could I have explained that I like a little pain in the game?

  So I just ignored the men when they tried to get me to have some type of a relationship with them. My grandmother lives thirty miles away and if I couldn’t get them to leave me alone, then I’d escape to her place until they moved on.

  Me and Cuddles are fine alone. She’s kind of a bitch just like I am. When dumbass male dogs come into the yard, she barks and goes at them like she’s a Doberman.

  She’s the same way with the human variety of men too. My poor mailman had a package he was trying to get to my door with. She ripped his pants leg as she tugged at it to make him stop coming to the door.

  He told me I needed a vicious dog sign and if I ever got another package, I could take my ass down to the post office to pick it up unless I tied the little bitch up.

  I took her inside and gave her a steak and a good-doggy pat on the head.

  She tried to do her job. Keep the evil, lying, no-good men away from her mommy!

  Thanks to her, I never have to worry about some man getting into my house without her trying to kill them.

  A large group of bikes pass by the shop and it makes the whole metal building rattle as they do. I put on my headphones and listen to a little music on my phone to drown out the outside noise.

  The annual motorcycle rally is growing very close and already large groups of bikers are coming into town. Trashy women are already showing up and strategically placing themselves on barstools in every bar and lounging around area parks, hopeful to score some biker dick.

  I don’t know where most of these females come from. We have a few but not as many as pop out of the woodwork when the rally is in town. It’s quite amazing, actually.

  It never fails to surprise me with all the ready-to-go-women, that I still get hit on just walking down the street. I’m always thinking as I’m flipping the men off who dare to bother me that there’s a ton of pussy walking around, leave me the hell alone.

  My uncle tells me I shouldn’t dress in tight leather pants and halter tops if I don’t want the men’s attention. He may be right, but fuck, I should be able to dress the way I want!

  I ride a motorcycle everywhere I go for Christ’s sakes!

  I need the leather to protect my fucking skin. If I ever fall that is.

  I look around and find the clipboard with the wooden back on it and knock on it three times.

  No reason to tempt fate!

  With the good Lord’s grace, I have never wrecked. I’ve come close a time or two, but never ate it. I knock on the wood again for even thinking about it.

  The computer freezes up for a moment and it scares the crap out of me that I’ll have to start this parts list over. I mutter to myself, “Fucking, piece of shit.”

  My uncle needs to buy a new computer, but he’s too cheap. This one will have to completely crap out before he’ll see fit to make the several hundred-dollar investment.

  And I’ll be stuck having to use my own laptop to order parts until he does. The man is a notorious penny pincher.

  Another thunderous bunch of bikes pass the shop, and it has me looking out the glass door at them. It’s a gang all wearing matching leather jack
ets and looking all cool.

  I’ve never been in a gang. Not that I haven’t thought they looked kind of cool. I’m just a real loner and loners don’t belong in groups.

  Loners like to be alone.

  Do some stormy nights have me wishing for more than my puppy as a companion?

  Sure.

  Does watching a love story on television have me searching for someone to love and love me?

  Sure. That’s why I don’t watch that shit anymore.

  Does the sight of a well-tattooed, bearded man with mountains of muscles get me hot?

  Of course, I am only human!

  But will I give a man a chance to fill those voids?

  Hell no!

  That leads to the heartbreak again, and that’s a place I’m never revisiting.

  But as I watch the pack of bikers ride past the garage, I see chicks riding bitch behind their boyfriends or husbands or whatever. And I secretly wish I could do that.

  Maybe just one time. Maybe I wouldn’t fall in love with the douche bag. Maybe I could keep things light and easy.

  Then the phone rings and it comes through on my headphones since I have them plugged in and it scares the shit out of me. “Shit!” I scream out loud as I pull the cord out of the phone.

  It’s a damn eight hundred number so I’m not even going to answer it, anyway. Man, what a way to ruin a little daydream!

  “Hey, a little help here, I ain’t got all day!” some man shouts from the bay.

  His voice is all gruff, and he sounds like an East coast, ass-wipe.

  I want to yell back that I ain’t got all day either but Uncle Phil talked to me just this morning about not being rude to the customers. So I don’t yell anything and get up off the tall stool and go see what the prick wants.

  Just as I get to the stairs that lead down into the bay I see a tall figure standing in the shadows as the mechanics turned the overhead lights off when they left for lunch.

  His broad shoulders stand out against the dim backlighting. As I look past him, I see a bad to the bone Harley just inside the bay and it looks brand new.