by Trent Jordan
“I guess I just undersold how frustrated I was not to have encountered Lucius there,” I said.
It was... true, but on such an insignificant level that it really didn’t matter. That was like saying I was frustrated I wasn’t worth tens of millions of dollars; sure, but it was so meaningless, it shouldn’t have been worth mentioning.
“As a President, I try and put on a stoic face so that my people don’t panic if they fail their mission,” I said. “You’re also a President, so you know what it’s like. You can pick up on other people’s bullshit when they’re trying to sugarcoat something. But it’s more important to me that the other officers don’t pick up on that.”
Lane’s expression softened.
“It’s all good, brother,” he said. “I have to do the opposite. I have to wear my heart on my sleeve. You know me. Aloof Lane for the longest time. I just felt like something might have happened on that run you didn’t want to admit.”
“I mean, I didn’t want to admit that we didn’t see Lucius. I wanted to come back with good news, but…”
Lane nodded.
“We all do, Cole,” he said. “Let’s get together soon to plan the next strike.”
With that, the two of us went back inside, but we split up into different sections. I took a seat on the couch in the left corner closest to the front door, while Lane went to talk to Patriot and Axle about something. He had his back to me and thus couldn’t see how a headache had started to affect me.
Lying to my brother.
Jealousy of my brother.
The same old fucking story…
“Hey, boss?”
Phoenix stood before me, his hands in his pockets.
“Do you need anything else from me?”
I shook my head. I gave it no thought, but really, what else was I going to need from him right now? Not a damn thing, that’s what.
“OK, I’m gonna head to Billiard’s and see Jess if that’s cool.”
“Of course,” I said.
Everyone can go see their ladies. I’ll just go home and... I don’t know. Call up a Reapers bunny or something.
“When are you gonna get yourself a lady?” Phoenix said with a guilty grin. “Seems like everyone else in this damn building has hitched up. Guess violence has a way of making people want to lean into each other, huh?”
I chuckled back, but not because I thought it was funny.
What if Lilly was your lady?
Now that was funny, and that did make me keep laughing. The daughter of Lucius, my lady? That girl? The one that had refused to help me at all?
The one that I found really attractive and felt something with…
“Man, I am in no rush,” I said. “I’ve got bigger fish to fry right now. I’ll worry about that when I’m in my thirties, not when I’ve got a war to finish.”
“And that’s why we love you as President,” Phoenix said. “All right. Call me if anything comes up.”
That’s why they love me as President.
Because I focus on the club and my brothers at the expense of myself.
I sat on that couch for what felt like another hour or two, even though in reality, it was probably only about ten or fifteen minutes. I passed the time just looking at my phone, eavesdropping casually on other conversations, and just watching the room interact.
Everyone thought of me as the connector of the two Carters, as the guy who wanted to meet and greet and interact. But that had only been true in relation to the immature Lane, and even then, I suspect things might have gotten overblown.
Now, sitting on the couch alone, nursing a headache of my own creation, as Lane chatted with Patriot about something, it was obvious that at best, things had evolved past that, and at worst, things were never like that.
Patriot shook hands with Lane and headed out. I couldn’t tell Lane the truth now. But I felt like I had to do something to bring us closer together, even if that thing was a protection against the truth.
I walked up to Lane with an offer I had not made in not just the past year and a half, but what felt like years beyond that.
“Hey, man,” I said. “Wanna go grab a drink somewhere? Just chat?”
Lane’s eyes registered shock. How could they not? Our meetings the past several months were merely business, never personal.
“Wish I could, but I promised Angela a date night at the beach,” he said. “With things getting as hairy as they are, I promised her I’d spend an evening away from the madness, and so—”
“I got it, no worries,” I said.
Once again, Lane had to disappear because of a great woman. I wasn’t as jealous of Angela as I had been of Shannon, perhaps because Lane wasn’t a shithead anymore, but still.
“Maybe tomorrow or this weekend,” he said.
“We’ll figure it out.”
I headed home, leaving with only a pat on Lane’s arm. I had no other reason to stick around at the clubhouse, no other business to attend to. And when I got home, well, it was as I should have expected it.
Empty.
Other than the blankets and pillow on the couch, there were no signs that Lilly had been here last night. There was no toothbrush left in the bathroom, no hairband left on the dresser, no cup used in the sink. The little things that would have said she’d spent the night didn’t exist.
If I had forgotten about her, it would have been just like most other nights. Alone.
Oh, sure, I could call up many a girl and have them come over for sex. That wasn’t an issue. But I was a weirdo compared to other bikers in that sex just never did it for me as much as having intimacy did. I guessed…
Well, I knew why I wanted the closeness more than the sex.
I just didn’t like to admit it out loud. It sounded so... so immature, so overly psychoanalytical, like something I should have gotten over a long time ago.
I would just say, even to myself, that when the one woman that should have loved you more than anyone died because of you—because of your mere birth—you had a hard time not clinging to the first person that popped up in your life to show you some level of trust.
The empty place started to put me into a tailspin. I did a great job of hiding this from the club members, and when it came time to roll, I could kill and defend as well as anyone, but in these moments alone…
Maybe, on some strange level, I hadn’t saved Lane so much to help him as because Angela had reached out to me.
Maybe I had welcomed the return of Jess, even if she came to Phoenix, because it was a familiar face in a new life.
Maybe I had chosen to take Lilly in not for intel purposes, but…
This is fucking stupid. I need a fucking drink.
Phoenix might have gone to Tom’s Billiards to see Jess for company, but he was going to have to accept the presence of a third wheel.
And maybe, just maybe, I’d also get a little bit of company.
Just enough to tide me over for a little longer.
Lilly
I felt free.
I felt like my life was finally my own.
No, not just that.
I finally felt like the air I was breathing was not occupied by someone else.
I finally felt like the space I could move in was not watched by someone else.
I finally felt like the decisions I would make wouldn’t have to be approved by someone else.
I finally felt like my mind…
Was not, unfortunately, completely free of my father’s influence. I knew he would be looking for me. I knew his men would be looking for me. Maybe even Cole and his club of bikers would be looking for me.
But you know what?
I didn’t really care about how free or not free my mind was. I had the freedom of space and movement, freedoms that I had never really had before. The mind could wait; the body needed to explore.
Oh, how fresh air tasted after being confined for over twenty years! How wonderful it felt to jaywalk across a street with no traffic! How amazing an
d liberating it was to know that if I wanted to go into a store and get some bagels, I wouldn’t first need my father’s approval to make sure that the store wasn’t affiliated with the Black Reapers or any other enemy.
I could do whatever I wanted. And even though, truth be told, it wasn’t like I had a huge list of things I wanted to do, just knowing I could do those things or anything…
My life and my actions probably wouldn’t differ that much from when I was at home, but the very fact that I had the option to be free and live as I wished was powerful. It made me feel like... like something that, even though my age suggested was true, my mind hadn’t acknowledged until now.
Like an adult.
I strolled through “downtown” Ashton, which was really just one main street with a couple of perpendicular streets with a couple of businesses here and there. I started my day by grabbing a bacon-and-egg bagel sandwich at a local shop, Benny’s, only to realize the math didn’t add up to me lasting long with the money I had. But I vowed to myself that I would cross that financial bridge when I got there; not that I would not care about money or not take it seriously, just that I would stay present for now.
I saw a clothing store, perhaps the one place that I didn’t need to express my newfound freedom. Dad, being a man who didn’t want to know things, had just given me a couple hundred bucks each month to buy clothes and let me run free.
I saw a pizza place, a Mexican restaurant, and a pool hall that had not yet opened. I saw a couple of government buildings, a post office, and a book store. I walked into the book store, said hello to an older lady behind the desk, and browsed.
I wasn’t exactly cut off from information, as we did have the internet at my house. But this freedom, the ability to sit down at a desk and just read for hours on end... my Lord, why had it taken me until now to try and run away?
Because you know what your father would—will—do if—when—he gets you back.
I grabbed a fantasy novel, sat down on a couch, and just started reading. I lost myself in this world of make-believe, dragons, wizards, and magic; I felt drawn in to a place where I didn’t have a curfew, didn’t have to check in with my father.
Out of some curiosity, I checked my phone. I had no missed calls, no texts. Maybe my father had finally wised up and realized he’d lost me because of his hulking, inescapable presence.
Or maybe he’d just gotten himself wrapped up in some stupid club drama and hadn’t called me yet.
Or it’s because Cole disabled the phone, remember?
Might as well take advantage of the freedom for a bit.
I read that fantasy novel for about thirty pages before the elderly woman behind the counter asked me if I was going to purchase that book. Not wanting to spend any more money than I had to—and aware of the fact that I’d have to keep it if I wanted to get the hell out of town—I put the book back, apologized, and walked out. She gave me one of those business-polite smiles, the kind that would vanish the second I turned my back.
But as fucked up as it sounded, it was better than having the smile vanish when you were facing someone directly. Most especially because I was used to that smile very quickly turning into violent, bitter anger.
I headed outside. Tired of not having a working phone, one that could give me maps and a direction to go in, I pulled it out, remembered the instructions Cole had given me, and tried to put the chip back in. It was a mess, and I wasn’t sure I’d done it right.
But when I pulled up my maps, everything came up as it should have. It was good enough for now.
I came to a fountain near one of the government buildings, the kind that people threw pennies in while making a wish. There was but one other person around, someone eating a sandwich en route somewhere, leaving me by myself. I sat down at the edge of the fountain, let my body relax, and smiled.
This was all I had ever wanted. To relax and have complete control, but also no objective. To just be free.
And then…
I got restless.
For what, I couldn’t say. But it felt like I was due for something to happen. Something always did—my father could never leave me alone for long at the house.
Someone was bound to come out of the building and tell me to leave. A cop would probably recognize me and ask me about my father’s whereabouts. A Reaper would pick me up and bring me back to Cole.
No, I didn’t have evidence for these fears. No, I couldn’t rationalize them. But…
I looked down the block. On the far end, a bit removed from all the other buildings, was a sign that said “Tom’s Billiards.” It looked open. And, judging by what information popped up on my maps app, it served alcohol.
Well, I had never before had a drink on a weekday afternoon. Maybe that was strange, maybe it wasn’t, but it felt like the kind of thing I should have done by now in my life. It was time to exercise my freedom and have a literal taste of some vices. I walked to the billiards bar.
Outside, one motorcycle and one car were parked, but otherwise, the place was devoid of vehicles even in adjacent lots. I knew that the motorcycle didn’t belong to a Fallen Saint—the blood painting on such bikes were impossible to miss, for even a blind eye could not have ignored them—but whether it belonged to a Reaper or someone else was beyond me.
And honestly, it made no real difference to me.
I opened the door, took one step inside, and scanned the room. Booths ran from the front to the rear and then along the back, like an L shape. To the far left was the bar, perhaps about fifteen feet from me. One man sat there, a beautiful red-haired girl behind the bar. The girl looked like she had dyed her hair that color, for it clashed with the rest of her face.
But then my eyes readjusted back to the man. He had on a biker cut—one that said “Gray Reapers” on the back, with a bony finger pointed my way and a gray hood around it.
“Hello,” the bartender said in a friendly voice. “What can I get you?”
I walked forward, knowing I wasn’t doing anything wrong but still somehow feeling like I had descended into the wrong type of place. I took a seat at the far end of the bar, cautious to give the biker space.
“Uh, just a margarita, please,” I said, my voice shaky.
I hadn’t given this any thought. I didn’t even know the full ingredient list for a margarita. I just wanted to sound like I’d been in a bar and ordered my own drink before.
“Absolutely,” the bartender said, before leaning close to the man and whispering something in his ear. I kept my eyes straight ahead, transfixed on the various bottles of alcohol. I knew some of them well, thanks to my father owning them, but as far as what the individual differences were? What, for example, was Skyy like compared to Gray Goose?
I knew nothing.
I have a lot to learn about freedom.
“You look familiar.”
With extreme anxiety, I turned toward the biker who had spoken my name. He did, unfortunately, look familiar. He was one of the other two bikers with Cole from last night.
I didn’t say anything. I turned my attention back to the bar rack, hoping that ignorance would work in this spot.
“Are you just going to ignore me?” he said. “I know who you are—”
“No, you don’t,” I snapped. “No one does.”
The forcefulness of my words caught him off-guard. It had to have; it caught me off-guard.
“And that’s how I like it.”
The bartender placed the finished margarita in front of me. I took a sip. It was strong. I made a contorted face like someone had punched me.
“Do you want me to remake it?”
“Don’t do it for the daughter of—”
“It’s fine,” I said. “It’s... it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” the biker said.
“Phoenix…”
“No, this is the daughter of Lucius. If she’s here, that’s a problem for us. It means that he’s going to come here looking for her.”
I still felt a sic
kening fear in my chest. The words about what the Reapers would do to me if they caught me had never left my mind, and Cole’s actions had only demonstrated to this point that there were exceptions, not a general truth I had yet to uncover.
“You realize why I was out there last night, right? Did you forget last night?”
Just because I was fearful didn’t mean I wasn’t willing to fight back.
“Did you forget that I was trying to run away? Do you really think I’d want to help my father? This is the first margarita of my life. Can you just let me drink in peace?”
This Phoenix guy—I assumed it was not his real name—bit his lip. He tried to maintain his steely gaze on me as if that would allow him to save face for mocking a woman who had never before had a margarita. He eventually turned back to the bartender without a word, not even so much as an apologetic nod.
It was fine for me. Less was more.
I retreated to a corner booth, sipping on my drink, fighting to get it down my stomach. Here I was, in my mid-twenties, drinking a margarita for the first time ever. What other “mini-bucket list” items did I have that I had not tried before?
Let’s see. Fly on an airplane alone. Go to the beach for a day alone. Try marijuana—although the smell of it was something I knew better than the smell of a rose. Go on a date.
Have sex.
The list was endless, but a lot of it could just fall into two categories—personal freedom, and freedom of choice with a man. I could not concern myself with the latter right now, but the former?
First item. Figure out a place to fly. Figure out where I could go that would allow—
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Looks like I can get calls after all. I pulled it out.
It was my father.
I didn’t ignore the call, because that would have told my father I noticed him calling me. I preferred to just let it ring out to voicemail.
In the interim, I took stock of how much money I had now. Considering my bagel purchase this morning—and the money I owed for this margarita, which would probably be about five or six dollars, I hoped—I had a little over a hundred and eighty-five dollars to my name. If I got to LAX…
Well, first, I didn’t even know if LAX took cash. Probably not. So much for that.