by CM Genovese
“Me? Chicken?” Oosik replied, taking Pinky down from his shoulder and setting her on the floor. “I’m the king of that damn game. How many times do I have to prove it?”
Cassie laughed and stuck out her tongue. Rain wrapped her up in his arms.
“Ever been inside an MC?” I asked.
Tayla didn’t answer me. She was busy taking in the sights. In the kitchen, the old man who helped run the place, Cracker, was making burritos. Some girl in tight, super short pink shorts and a white tank top with no bra beneath was reaching into the fridge for a drink. I’d never seen her before but that didn’t surprise me. The place was a revolving door of pussy. Somebody was always bringing new girls around.
Beyond the kitchen was the bar where Slitz was pouring drinks for the foreign chick he was fucking that night in my room. She’d become a regular. Not quite his girlfriend but definitely a club whore who’d chosen his side to cling to. Most of the girls surrounding the bar had that same look about them, like they came from somewhere over in Europe.
In the living room, old fight replays were flashing across the TV screen. Carousel liked to keep them on rotation. Usually it was stuff he found on YouTube. Best knockouts, fastest tap outs, most brutal finishes – that kind of stuff. My biker brothers and their buddies filled every other empty space. This was quite the party going on and it was a terrible night to bring Tayla to the MC. I had no idea how many of these people knew her dad.
“Hey,” I said as I rubbed Tayla’s arm.
“Yes?”
“Have you ever been to an MC before?”
“A few times back home in Nashville and then in New York when my dad transferred there, but never when anything like this was going on. He only took me there during the day and only to pick up something or drop something off.”
It didn’t surprise me. Most of the guys in the MC kept their personal lives as separate as possible. Wives, unless they were already a part of the lifestyle before marriage, and children were hardly ever brought around. One more reason why Cubby might want to bash my head in if he found out about us. When he found out, because I had a feeling he’d be learning about it soon enough.
“Maybe we should skip the party and head to my room,” I suggested.
“Pipe, more than any other time in my life, I need a drink right now.” She moseyed on over to the bar before I had the chance to argue with her.
“What you need, precious?” Slitz asked as he turned toward her. He saw me over her shoulder and added, “Pipe, what’s up, brother?”
“Just got in,” I said. “What’s this all about?” I gestured at the room around us, wondering why so many people were in the clubhouse tonight.
“BP wanted to throw a party. His girl’s in town.”
“Wait, Toni’s in town?”
“Yeah, she flew in earlier today.”
“I was with him earlier today and he didn’t say anything about it.”
“You ain’t the only one who can keep secrets,” BP’s deep, thunderous voice spoke over my shoulder as his large, heavily tattooed forearm reached past me and snatched up a beer bottle.
Toni was the president of the Hell’s Alleycats MC down in Seattle. She was a pretty woman, a little rough around the edges, but she was cute. She wore her hair really short on one side and long on the other, with the tips dark pink.
“Hey handsome,” Toni said as she wrapped her arms around me.
“Gorgeous,” I replied, “what are you doing hanging around this bum?”
BP slapped the back of my head and said, “Keep playin’.”
“Is this your girl?” Toni asked, gesturing to Tayla as if she wasn’t standing two feet away and could hear every word.
I looked at Tayla because I wasn’t really sure what to say.
“Hi,” Tayla said, putting out her hand to shake Toni’s. “I’m a friend.”
“A friend,” BP said with a grin as he put his beer bottle to his lips.
“A friend,” Toni echoed, laughing as she took a sip of her whiskey.
Tayla leaned over the bar and said to Slitz, “Can I get two shots of Fireball and a Long Island Iced Tea?”
“That’s a hell of a mix,” Slitz said to me.
“She likes what she likes,” I replied.
“Well, one of the shots is for you, stud,” Tayla said as Slitz filled two shot glasses with cinnamon whiskey. She handed one to me. “Here. Drink with me.”
It was the least I could do, so I lifted my glass and shot it down. She did the same and winced.
“Still want to show me your room?” she asked.
“Show her your room, man,” BP said.
“Yeah, show her your room,” Toni agreed. “Show her the bed, the floor, the dresser…”
Toni winked at me as I took Tayla by the hand and led her away from the bar. As we walked away, I heard Slitz say, “Isn’t that Cubby’s daughter?”
Holding Tayla by her hand, I moved through the clubhouse and out the side door that took us to the living quarters. With Slitz out in the bar and Beezus assigned to watch over Carla, I knew nobody would be fucking in my room this time.
Once we were inside and I’d flipped on the light, Tayla stood at the center of my room and took it all in. I followed her gaze with mine and realized for the first time that someone could find out a lot about me by studying my room.
I was tidy. That much was clear. It bothered the hell out of me to have things out of place. My shoes and boots were neatly aligned against one wall. My bed was made every single morning after I woke up. I think I was the only one of my brothers to do that.
“Clean,” Tayla said. “Much cleaner than my house anyway.”
“You’ve got kids to chase around,” I said as I searched my phone for a good song to put on my room’s speaker system. I decided to go with ‘Waiting Game’ by BANKS.
She laughed and ran a finger over the top of my TV. “Not even a trace of dust.” She shook her head. “John’s a fucking mess. It’s like having a third child.”
I didn’t really like hearing his name when I was alone with her, but I figured she needed some time to adjust. She’d need to get some shit off her chest, and it was time for me to sit back, listen, and watch. I plopped down in the reclining chair next to my bed and studied her. She was thick, just the way I liked my women, and I knew from experience how warm her body was.
Here she was, only a few feet away, and I wasn’t sure I was allowed to touch her. The beast in me said grab hold of her and make up for the last six years you spent without her, but I was also afraid I’d scare her away. One wrong move and she might ask me to take her to Aunt Jamie’s house.
Seeing her in my room was almost surreal. We’d gotten to know each other so well over the years. At this point, I was so comfortable with her it seemed like I’d known her all my life. Yet, having her in my room seemed too good to be true. Six years ago, she’d been a young woman, desperate to feel wanted. She’d been mistreated by her husband and she felt alone. She had no kids. My arms were the ones that comforted her. My cock was the one that reminded her she was a desired woman.
Now, I was seeing her in a different light. I actually saw her.
Not as the wife of someone else who’d screwed me over, but as the woman I was in love with. The mom who comforted her children, who took care of my son, and was right now standing in my room – again, desperate to feel wanted. She needed to be needed. More than anything, she deserved to feel like nothing else in the whole world mattered but her. That she was someone’s reason for breathing. That her body was breath, and I was suffocating without her.
But does she want to be with you? Or is she going to push you away again when she realizes she’s cheating on her husband again?
The music started and she put the tip of her index finger between her teeth. “Slow music. You trying to seduce me?”
I laughed and didn’t answer. It was a rhetorical question. Of course, I was trying to fucking seduce her. Buried deep down inside me, some
where hardly noticeable, that other side of me screamed, “Turn off the music! This is the kind of shit that got you into this mess in the first place!”
This mess was the drop-dead gorgeous woman in front of me. Tayla bent over to look at my movie shelf and my eyes were drawn to her tight ass. At the risk of seeming vulgar, it wasn’t lost on me that there between her legs, in perfect pounding position, was the pussy I’d craved for six years. At this angle, I could easily drop to my knees behind her and take a sip.
“The Perfect Storm, The Guardian,” she said as she read the movie titles on the shelf, “Braveheart, Lone Survivor, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi… interesting.”
“Interesting?”
“All movies about men overcoming impossible odds.”
“Love Actually is mixed in there somewhere too,” I told her.
“Love… another impossible odd.”
“You think so?”
She stood and turned toward me. “Don’t you?”
“I don’t think it’s impossible. I think there are always assholes in the way of it. If you give up too easily, love will pass you right by. It doesn’t stop and wait around for stragglers.”
“Am I a straggler?”
I stood up and met her at the center of the room where I wrapped my arms around her.
“Yes,” I said. “You are.”
She shoved her head into my chest and held onto me tight. Our bodies swayed gently to the music, neither of us quite committed to a dance, but this was as close as we’d come to one.
“But I think I’ve been holdin’ on hard enough for both of us,” I added.
Her silence said more than she knew. She was crying into my chest. Finally, she spoke. “I’m so sorry, Pipe. I know you hate me in so many ways. I didn’t know he was gonna sign the birth certificate. It wasn’t planned. He was there when Caleb was born and just signed. I didn’t know what to say, and I was afraid. I didn’t think you’d want the responsibility.”
“Shh,” I said.
“But I’m a horrible person. You’ve been there from the beginning, and I’ve treated you like—"
I lifted her face and pressed my lips against hers. This was the first time we’d kissed since the last time we’d slept together, and her mouth invited me in as if there hadn’t been years between. She moaned as my tongue entered her and met hers. With one hand at her neck and the other at the small of her back, I pulled her into me so tight I thought I might break her.
She pushed me back to my reclining chair and shoved me into the seat. She straddled me and hesitated, looking down at me. Her eyes were so sad but also seemed so hopeful. Her blonde hair hung down over her shoulders. She’d always reminded me of a porcelain doll with her pale complexion and big, beautiful eyes.
“I want to leave him, Pipe,” she said.
It was the best news I’d ever heard, but it was also said when she was vulnerable, and we were in the heat of passion. She could change her mind.
“Let’s talk about that later,” I suggested.
“No, I mean it. He’s not the one for me. He never was.”
“And I am?”
She took too long to answer, and I responded with a slow nod. What else was there to say?
“I’m a lot to take on,” she said softly.
I moved to stand up and she got off me. I lay back on my bed and she sat down beside me.
“I have a lot of baggage is what I mean,” she added.
“I know what you mean.”
“Then why do you seem angry?”
“I’m not angry,” I said. “I was angry a long time ago. Six years ago. I flipped when I found out Caleb would grow up thinking that asshole was his dad.”
Tayla let her gaze fall into her lap. Her face was awash with shame.
“At first, I wanted nothing to do with you,” I continued. “Then I decided that wouldn’t have been the right thing for my boy. But what was the right thing for him, you know? To confuse him and challenge what was going on? Then what? Fight you for custody and if I won bring him here and raise him in an MC?”
“You’d never take my son away from me,” she said, and when she looked at me there was a mother’s rage in her eyes. She was ready to fight me if she had to.
The song on my playlist changed to ‘Sorry’ by Aquilo and I chuckled because the song was so fitting for the situation.
“Think that’s fucking funny, Pipe?” she asked, her face getting red. “I’d kill you if you ever tried to take my son away.”
“You sure you don’t belong in this world?” I asked.
“What?”
I removed my kutte and draped it over the chair.
“Come here,” I said as I tugged on her shirt, inviting her to lie with her head on my chest. She fell into place easily, like she belonged there. “I was laughing about the song.”
She was quiet for a second, listening to the lyrics, and then she laughed too.
“Who’s the one saying sorry here?” she asked.
“Better be you,” I replied.
She laughed again.
“I’d never try to take Caleb from you,” I said. “I couldn’t raise that boy.” I paused and realized it came out wrong, so I added. “Without you.”
When she lifted her head and looked at me, I saw a smile on her lips. She kissed me again. Then she returned her head to my chest. This wasn’t one of those moments we were going to have sex. This wasn’t the time for that. We had shit to sort out.
We lay in silence, listening to the music, while she continued studying my room. My walls were bare, but every shelf in the room was stacked with books. A guitar signed by all three members of ZZ Top sat on a stand in the corner.
“Do you play guitar?” she asked.
“Not yet. But I will… someday.”
“Maybe you and your son can take lessons together.”
“I’d like that,” I said. “I’d like that a lot.”
“You have a lot of books.”
It was strange that after so many years of knowing each other, she was finally getting to know me.
“Reading gets me out of my head,” I admitted. “I spend enough time with my thoughts. Stories are an escape. Poetry puts me in a better mood. My mind is a dark place, babe. I think I like reading because I get to see that these authors, these men who are far greater than I am have more morbid thoughts.”
She was quiet for a beat and then said, “Makes sense.”
“What about you? Tell me about you.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“I was a dancer once upon a time.”
“You have the body for it.”
“Ha. Not anymore but thank you. I was a gymnast too. Cheerleader. Was in a few pageants.”
“Oh, you were that girl.”
“I was that girl. Back in the day. My dad was a shit father. He was always on the road, in and out of jail, or with some other woman and her family.”
“Cubby,” I said, “the MC lifestyle is tough on families.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew she’d latch onto them. It was what she feared. It made more sense now why she’d choose a military spouse lifestyle rather than being the ol’ lady of an MC member. At least being married to somebody in the service, she’d be guaranteed a place to live, schooling for her kids, and food on the table. Her husband might travel more than I would, but other than that, he was a much safer bet.
“It is,” she finally agreed.
“You guys seem close now,” I said.
“He’s my dad. He apologized, I forgave him, and the world is back on its axis.”
“That’s good.”
“The kids love him. Grandpa Cubby.”
“And Uncle Pipe,” I reminded her.
“We’re a dysfunctional family, aren’t we?”
“So dysfunctional.”
I wanted to promise her I could take care of her. That I could provide her a different lifestyle than the
one she grew up in, but how could I? I lived at a motorcycle club hangout. I had a one-room living space. Sure, I could rent a place in town. Rain and Cassie were in the process of doing that. They’d been looking for a place together. As dumb as it sounded, I was afraid to make that offer to Tayla. What if I couldn’t hold up my end of the bargain? What if I was a shit father to my son and little Myra just like Cubby was to Tayla?
Tayla reached over to turn off the bedside lamp and then returned her head to my chest. There, with soft music playing in the darkness, we both drifted off to sleep.
“Pipe… Pipe, wake up,” Tayla’s voice shook me from my sleep.
I jolted awake, nearly swatting her with my hand in the process. I’d been in the middle of another nightmare where Caleb was taken by the black car and I was left beating on the window with a closed fist as it sped away.
“Baby,” Tayla said as she put her hands on my cheeks to steady my shaking, “you were having a nightmare.”
“God. That fucking dream again.”
“What dream?”
“Not right now.”
She ran her fingers through my hair, calming me down and before I knew it, it was my head resting on her chest. She’d moved to an upright position and cradled my head in her arms.
Music was still on at a low volume, my chill playlist providing a soothing atmosphere.
“You sure you don’t want to talk about the dream?” she asked.
“No, baby,” I replied. “I want to forget it.”
My thumb found its way to her tits where I swiped it back and forth softly over her shirt. Her breath quickened and I heard her heartbeat pick up its pace.
“Is that your way of forgetting it?” she asked.
I reached down and tugged up on her sweatshirt, so I could see the smoothness of her soft stomach. My fingers traced her belly and my cock hardened from the warmth of her. Her skin was always so blazing hot. It was something I remembered from six years ago. It could have been the coldest winter night, and as soon as our naked bodies came together, it was like being covered with a warm blanket. Her heat made me so fucking horny.
There, in the dark, I felt her. My hands moved over her, my fingers circled her bellybutton, and she giggled when it tickled.