by Lena Bourne
Colt’s been blowing up my phone all day it seems, so much so, he’s nearly drained the battery. I pull on my boots before even thinking about calling him back, let alone what I’ll actually say when I do.
I have to piss something awful, but I’ll take care of that outside. No need to disturb Misti with it, or with the call I have to make now.
Luckily the motel is surrounded by flat dusty desert in all directions, and we seem to be its only guests. I walk behind the corner of the building and relieve myself behind a wall of cactuses growing there. None of these are blooming like the one in front of the diner was, but maybe now that they got some nourishment, they will.
It’s a stupid thought, but it makes me chuckle. I have a very sinking feeling I won’t have much to laugh about once I return Colt’s calls.
I dial his number anyway since there’s no point dragging it out any longer.
“What the fuck, Blaze?” he snaps at me before the line even rings once. “You can’t just fucking leave.”
“I had to,” I say.
“Yeah, you spun me enough of that bullshit yesterday,” he says. “We’re all coming with you. You had to have known that. Now you got Cross thinking you had something to do with explosions and nothing I say is convincing him otherwise. Just come back.”
OK, this is much worse than I thought it would be.
But does it change anything?
The stench of my piss on the dried earth is quickly growing disgusting in the afternoon heat, so I walk a few paces along the building and slide down to sit by the wall.
“Is it giving you problems?” I ask.
“No,” he says in a tight voice. “They don’t suspect me. They suspect you.”
I suddenly have no idea what to say. Or think. Or feel. And I certainly don’t know what to do.
“What do you mean, you’re all coming with me?” I ask.
He makes a sound somewhere between a snort and a sigh. “Did you think Cross is gonna let something like this attack stand? No, we’re riding to avenge our brothers. And I’m willing to bet all I have that your family won’t have anything to worry about from the Snakeskins once we’re done. Unless Cross thinks you had something to do with it. Then you all will have a much bigger problem on your hands than you ever did before.”
“When are you riding?” I ask.
“Hasn’t been decided yet,” he says.
I stare off into the distance where a small town is shimmering in the heat. The walls of the houses are washed in gold from the late afternoon sun and I truly wish I could just enjoy the beauty of it.
“I meant what I said. This changes nothing. My place is with my family,” I say slowly.
“You can be such a fucking idiot sometimes, Blaze,” he snaps.
“Besides, Stormi’s sister is with me,” I say. “I promised her a road trip.”
“That was another very bad decision you made,” he snaps. “Stormi’s been frantic. Ace is pissed off as hell as a result and—”
“My battery’s about to die,” I say. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Call Cross, explain yourself,” he says and I hang up without replying.
The Devils riding to wipe out the Snakes is not a given. Cross seeing it my way isn’t either.
But my uncle’s death is a given.
The feud that killed him is too.
As is Misti waiting for me in the motel room, pure and innocent and waiting for an adventure.
Life can be that simple. That beautiful. That hopeful.
It won’t last forever. Probably won’t even last long.
But it can be perfect while it does.
Misti is so right in so many ways and about so many things. But in one thing she’s absolutely right. Neither of us is meant to live long.
She with her poor heart, me with my feud, which will survive me no matter what. Just as it has every dead member of my family for close to a hundred years.
Those are the only certainties. And they can be ignored.
13
Blaze
She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, with her neatly packed little bag of clothes and other stuff, which fits perfectly into my saddlebag, open beside her. The bulk of what she brought with her, as far as I can tell, is a bright yellow cosmetics bag full of pill bottles. The medications keeping her alive. I don’t want to think about that.
Her eyes are sparkling blue, like two sapphires, like the peaceful Pacific Ocean at dawn, and I can’t look away once she fixes them on mine. Not on my life.
“Are you in trouble?” she asks softly.
I shrug and toss my phone on the bed. “It doesn’t change anything. We’re still taking the road trip.”
She smiles so wide it’s like the sun coming up in the morning. I need a shower and I need to change but I walk to her anyway and brush her light blonde hair—so light it’s almost as white as snow—back from her face. It feels like lace under my fingers and I didn’t think I cared about any such thing, but I do. I want to feel her softness all the time, while I sink into her serene peaceful eyes and never resurface.
She puts her cool hands on my cheeks and pulls me down, dousing the fire in me with both her touch and her soft kiss. Making me aware of just how unworthy I am of her touch or her care me. Not least because I stink from two days in the sun with no shower and no change of clothes.
I take her wrists and peel her hands away gently.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell her and stride into the bathroom before she can say anything. Before her disappointed expression even really sinks into my awareness.
The bathroom smells of her, a clean flowery scent that reminds me of early spring, despite the overwhelming scent of bleach wafting off everything. I get in the shower and turn it as cold as I can stand.
My skin feels like there’s a fire glowing just beneath the surface all the time. I don’t know if that’s something I made up to go with my name, or a real thing, but it’s always been fitting and always been there. One touch from her and that fire becomes bearable. One look from her jewel-blue eyes and it becomes something I need and want because she does.
Thoughts of putting her in danger with my actions and my decisions keep intruding as the cool water washes over me, but they’re as distant and inconsequential as the dirt and grime flowing down the drain with it.
I’ll die before I let anything happen to her. And I think she and I both need a little time away from everything. Especially our lives.
Misti
The sun set glorious and dark purple into the rising dark blue night, lined with bright white along the horizon, while I leaned against his back, my arms wrapped around his waist, his bike thrumming beneath us, and watched it over his shoulder.
The wind that blows across the desert is warm and cold at the same time. I’ve known that my whole life even though I’ve never stood it in for long enough to feel the full glory and magic of it.
A town is glimmering in the distance before us now, its lights hazy and wavering, the edges soft and sublime, but they’re bright and I’m starving and ready to stand on my own two feet for a while, after hours of sailing through the world on the back of his bike.
He seems to have the same idea, as he pulls into a parking lot in front of a brightly lit, wooden building at the edge of town. Pool and Wings the neon red, blue, and yellow flashing sign across the entrance to the parking lot reads, and it seems to have attracted half the population of the town tonight. At least judging by all the brightly colored cars, their metallic paint, and chrome parts gleaming in the lights from the sign and those coming from the pool hall.
As soon as the rumbling of his bike ceases as he parks with the other Harleys to the side of the entrance, the sound of pool cues hitting pool balls, loud rock music, and even louder laughter hit me. The smell of chicken wings, spicy and wholesome rides with it, making my stomach rumble.
“Ever played pool?” he asks with a wide smile as he puts our helmets away.
The ch
ildlike joy making his eyes twinkle is contagious.
“Never in my life,” I say. “I’ve never done anything sporty.”
He wraps his arm around my shoulders and leads me to the three steps leading up to the wraparound porch that encircles the building. The porch is full of groups of people, men, women, young and old, talking and smoking and drinking, as they lean on the railing or their pool cues, since there aren’t any chairs or tables out here.
“Well, you're about to learn,” he says. “I haven’t played in ages and really want to right now.”
Inside, the wide-open space is evenly divided along the middle, with the left side of the building taken up by several rows of pool tables and the right side by square wooden tables and matching chairs. All the tables are covered by checkered tablecloths, some white and red, some blue and red, some yellow.
On both sides, about half the tables are taken.
“Pool first, or are you too hungry?” he asks, staring longingly at the former, leaving no doubt what his preference is.
“I’m not too hungry,” I say and smile at his zeal as he leads the way to a pool table by the room’s far window.
I watch him as he takes his time picking out the cues from the rack mounted on the wall. He finally brings them to the table, handing me a bone-white one, with a light blue handle.
“OK, so first, I’ll rack the balls and then break,” he says walking around the table and taking the balls from the holes in the sides. Pockets I believe they’re called.
“That cue’s not too heavy for you, is it?” he asks as he passes me.
I shake my head as I heft it. “No, it’s perfect.”
He spends the next couple of minutes explaining the game to me, but it’s all in one ear and out the other.
“Let’s just play and you’ll explain as we go,” I finally suggest and he grins and starts playing.
I wish I had more strength to hold the cue up, or more stamina to walk around the table to make my shots. Or more strength to slam the stick into the white ball, for that matter.
But I do love it when he helps me hold the cue, leaning over my back, his strong bulk dwarfing me, his protective presence making me feel safe and secure and desired, present like I’ve never been present in my entire life. Truly alive. That’s the best way to describe it. The only way, really.
All the scenes in all the movies and TV shows I’ve watched that feature a pool hall romance are flashing through my mind, but none of them compare to the real thing. Everything is in vivid color, bright and fresh, especially him. His dark, slightly curly hair gleams like brushed gold in the overhead yellow light. His dark eyes, reflecting it all. The music is perfect too. As are the soft kisses he gives me in between taking his shots.
Everything is just as it needs to be, and I’m a part of it. No, I’m the center of it. The main focus of his smiles and his kisses, his long looks, and touches. That part is the most perfect of all because I never in a million years thought I’d ever be in any kind of scene I could watch on TV. Except the ones taking place in hospitals. And I never in a million years thought I’d be living in one with a man so dreamily handsome more than one of the women in here are checking him out.
I turn in his arms after another missed shot we tried to make together, to see him smiling down at me. “I think I need a little break,” I whisper, but I think we both know I don’t mean a sitting-down sort.
He kisses me softly, letting go of his cue to lift me to sit on the edge of the table, as though I weigh nothing. His kiss is even better now than it was that first glorious evening we spent together. It’s harder, yet gentle still. Familiar. Made just for me. And I taste sweet and nourishing things I can’t even describe, but they’re giving me strength even though my heart is thumping and fluttering in my chest. I should’ve sat down to catch my breath hours ago. Now, I’m beyond the point where my heart rate will go down and stabilize on its own easily.
But that’s perfectly fine. I don't want to catch my breath. I want to feel this way forever and ever.
But eventually, my body starts acting out on its own the way it always does when I don’t give it what it needs when it needs it.
“Are you alright?” he asks, concern ripping open the soft joy and desire floating in his eyes, as he looks at me while I try to catch my breath.
The room and all the vivid colors in it are blending into each other, blackness chipping away at the edges of my vision, as my raspy, jagged breaths try to keep up with my racing, thumping, fluttering heart.
“I’m fine,” I assure him.
“Are you?” he asks.
I smile. “I will be.”
Then I concentrate really hard on getting my heartbeat and my breathing under control.
He’s supporting me with both his strong hands, on each side of my waist, and concern is all there is in his eyes. Pity is there too. I don’t want to look into his eyes and see that. But I’m afraid he’ll just be gone if I look away.
Eventually, what seems like years later my vision, my breathing, and my heartbeat return to normal. Or normal for me, in the case of the latter.
“I overdid it a tad,” I say and smile at him. “Excitement and happiness always seem to trigger the worst of my attacks.”
“How sad,” he mutters, pity and concern still swimming in his eyes.
I slip down off the table.
“We won’t dwell on it,” I say firmly. “We’re here to have a good time and I’m not letting anything get in the way. Not even my heart.”
He chuckles and hugs me tight. “That’s the spirit. Now let’s go eat. The smell of those wings has been driving me wild for a while now.”
I grin at him as he lets me go. “You know what I just realized? I think my heart did that little flip-flop act because my stomach told it to.”
He grimaces but keeps smiling, looking at me skeptically. But at least the pity is gone.
“Not my best joke?” I ask.
“Nope,” he admits as he takes my hand and leads me to the eating area, winding his way between the tables and past the people around them as though they were no obstacle at all.
And they aren’t, nothing is. Not even my sick heart. Not as long as we’re together. Not as long as we can joke and laugh and kiss and fall in love.
14
Misti
The plan was to keep riding through the night then stop at a motel and watch the sunrise before sleeping the day away. But my heart said no. The actual, physical heart, not the one connected to my soul that loves flying through the night on his bike bathed in magical moonlight.
I fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow in the edge-of-town motel room we rented, but I’m wide awake now. I’m sitting on a plastic chair by the window watching the grey dawn turn pale gold with the rising sun. At least the part of the plan that involved watching the sunrise came true. But I’m doing it alone, because he’s still soundly asleep in the bed behind me, his rhythmic, even breaths filling the silence gloriously. At least I’m alive to see another dawn.
I haven’t been as tired and worn out as I was last night since before my operation. Maybe I should be worried. But I don’t want to be. I just want to watch the sun rise and enjoy my new life.
The rustling of the bedcovers and the wooden bed creaking and groaning behind me make me turn around. He’s looking at me with eyes only half-open, his hair tousled from sleep.
“What time is it?” he asks quietly, his voice thick with sleep. And good dreams, I hope.
I smile at him. “I have no idea. Does it matter?”
He grins and shakes his head. “Not at all.”
Then he scoots back from the edge of the bed and pulls the covers off. “It looks like it’s too early to get up. Come back to bed.”
I don’t have to be asked twice. It’s the only thing I want. And in the few moments, it takes me to close the distance between the chair by the window and the bed warmed by his body, I forget that I was thinking about worrying about my hea
rt.
Worrying of any sort, even just the idea of it is as foreign to me as another language by the time he wraps me in his strong arms right after pulling the covers back over us both.
“I’m sorry about last night,” I whisper. “The pool game really tired me out.”
He kisses my forehead softly, then my cheek, and finally my lips before looking at me. “That’s perfectly fine. We’re not in any kind of hurry.”
He kisses me again, not as softly as before, but still gently. His hands are gentle too as they slide over my back and my side. The bed is as soft as a cloud beneath me, warmed by the sun and the rising desire in my chest, which I now recognize for what it is.
His hand is hot against my skin as it slides under my t-shirt and I moan into his mouth as his coarse fingers brush across my nipple. I feel him smile right before he deepens our kiss and pinches my nipple just a little harder. The sensation makes me moan again, tiny pinpricks of light exploding everywhere, every one of them filled with pleasure and desire and burning anticipation. The latter grows and grows as he slides his hand down my bare stomach, the tips of his fingers stopping just below the elastic of my panties. My heart is racing and I’m having trouble catching a full breath, but it brings none of the blending of light and colors, not the blackness at the edge of my vision my attacks usually do. How can it? The whole room is awash in pale golden light and the desire flowing through my veins needs a release.
“It’s my first time,” I whisper to him as he looks down at me.
He grins. “Yeah, I figured.”
Then he kisses my neck softly like the brush of a butterfly’s wings as his hand slides down into my panties.
The sensation of his rough, hot skin on my pussy sends everything inside me a-flutter again. I moan and grab his arm, my fingers too short to reach around his bicep.
“Too much?” he asks, his fingers still rubbing my clit softly, sending those pinpricks of hot desire outwards like a shower of sparks, no, a blizzard of spark.