by Amber Burns
“Hey Cindy,” I wandered into the kitchen, watching her as she cleaned up the mess from dinner.
“Hey pretty boy,” she said without even looking at me.
“You gotta minute?” She stopped to look at me, her brows drawn down and her expression telling me I better have some good shit for interrupting her. “I have a hunch that shit is gonna go down. Do I follow it? Do I tell Teddy about it? Or do I keep my nose clean?”
“You’re asking me for advice?” She looked surprised, like she didn’t expect me to do something like that.
“This is on the basis that you’re smarter than me,” I figured buttering her up was the best idea. Because there were a few different ways to take this and I hadn’t figured out the best way to go about it.
Her lips twisted up to one side, and she gave me a hard look, like she didn’t take me seriously.
“If you’re serious,” she started then went back to work at cleaning up the kitchen. I helped by drying whatever she handed me, since I was distracted. “You need to ask yourself a few questions. Does it concern the club? If it does then you need to talk to Teddy,” she didn’t even hesitate with that. “If it doesn’t concern the club and this is some kind of shit you’ve gotten in with that girl, like done something stupid and knock her up, I’m going to cut off your balls and serve them for dinner tomorrow. Madison is too good for you to ruin.”
“First,” I couldn’t keep from sounding insulted. “I wrapped shit up. Second, I don’t want to fuck up shit with Madi. That’s gold, and I know it. I’m not that fucking stupid.”
“Well, good,” she handed me a heavy skillet that I nearly dropped. “I like her, it’s not every day one of you brats bring something good in here. She’s not an old lady.”
“So you’re telling me not to make her my old lady?”
“Are you in that deep, boy?”
I grimaced, if there was anyone that could give me solid advice it was probably Cindy. “I told her I loved her,” I admitted, and I couldn’t look at her. I knew how much an ass I sounded like. I had only been with the girl for two weeks, and I’d already dropped the L word.
“Wow,” she stopped what she was doing, and I knew she was staring at me. “You meant it, too, didn’t you?” I still couldn’t look at her, but I nodded. What was the point in denying it? “The look on your face, boy. I guess I can see it. She’s a sweetheart.” She went back to cleaning, “Hold onto her, buddy. If she didn’t kick you out on your ass when you said that she probably feels the same.”
“Can’t just be that I’m good at throwing dick?”
“I doubt it,” she took the towel from me. “If you feel like you need validation you’re not going to get it here. If your gut is telling you something, you should follow it. Just don’t go wrong by that girl, getting too serious too quick might scare her off. Quit being stupid.”
“Now you’re asking too much,” I huffed for show, she and I had a banter going that I couldn’t ruin because I felt vulnerable. “I was thinking about getting a ring, I gotta start saving for it now.”
“Get your ass out of here if you’re not going to listen to me,” she commanded and popped me in the ass with the towel.
At first, I didn’t think she gave me anything I could use. My gut was telling me something, though. It was time I followed it.
12
I decided that from then on I’d be keeping a closer eye on Jimmy. Unfortunately, for me, Teddy and Wilson had patched Jimmy into the club while I had been enjoying my weekend with Madi. I found it out the hard way when I went to have a talk with them on Monday morning.
“The fuck have you been?” Wilson snapped when I came into sit in front of the desk.
“Wednesday fucked me up, I was down and out for a few days,” it wasn’t a lie.
“Down and out with that girl?” Teddy asked, because damn him he saw straight through me.
I shrugged, no point and hiding it. “Yea. You going to rail me for it?”
Wilson snorted and shook his head. Teddy, on the other hand, gave me a nod like he knew that shit I’d been through for the last few years.
“Did you want something?” Teddy asked curiously.
“What’re your thoughts on us doing side jobs?”
“Side jobs?” Wilson asked with a raised eyebrow. “Boy, don’t you start being stupid on me. You know what you’re talking about when you say side job?”
All these people were implying that I was stupid, I grimaced at him and tried to keep it from getting me. I scratched my jaw as I eyed the other man.
“I have my ideas. Though side jobs for me are working on bikes and getting paid under the table. Side jobs for you guys are a little more illegal than tax evasion. But, what I’m asking is, do you monitor the side jobs that we do?”
Teddy’s eyes narrowed, and I wasn’t sure if he caught my meaning or not.
“I don’t keep tabs on what you do. Do I need to? Everyone we patch in is vetted to some degree and given six months to see if they’re a fit and can be trusted. We do things that aren’t legal on a lot of levels. If we had the cops coming in here with the cooking Cindy does and the papers we keep, it wouldn’t be hard to tell what we do. Everyone here would do some kind of jail time.”
He didn’t get my meaning, I rubbed the back of my neck, and I found that I was second guessing myself. Had this gotten too dangerous?
“You’re only dealing in pot, though, right?”
These were good people, I knew they were. They wouldn’t deal real poison to people, would they?
“Quit beating around the bush, Sid,” Teddy said with a growl. “You got some accusations to make?”
He didn’t look happy with me, and I didn’t feel like an ass for asking, but there was a growing sense of dread in my gut. I thought Teddy was a good man, I thought Wilson was, too. When they told me that they were getting pot from the closest legal state and trafficking it over to those that used it for medicine and couldn’t afford to move, I thought them heroes on some level. But, Jimmy didn’t really strike me as a hero; just a dumb kid.
I swallowed as I looked at him and I tried to decide if I wanted to call him on the suspicion I had on Jimmy. But, now with the doubt in my gut, I didn’t know if I could stomach looking at Teddy with the knowledge that he dealt in harder substances.
“Is it serious shit, man? I gotta know,” I looked to Wilson. “You guys kept me in the dark to protect me. But if it’s serious shit, the shit that kills people, I can’t be apart of that. And I don’t mean just to protect my paycheck.”
I still had morals, they had been protected by this man, and now they were threatening my view of him.
“We don’t,” Wilson started, and I looked at him. “We don’t do anything that will cause any of the people we deal with harm. You know what Cindy is cooking, you’re in the kitchen up her ass as much as the rest of us are. Why are you asking questions?” He didn’t look offended like Teddy did, his expression was closed but curious.
I knocked on his desk, hopefully for luck. “I think Jimmy’s dealing in harder stuff, he called it a side job. He’s given me four hundred for working on a friend’s bike. You and I both know that’s overpaying me.”
“Then why take the money?” Teddy asked; he was being hostile. He didn’t appreciate my line of questions. Teddy was a bear of a man, he was also grossly over protective. “Kid was working with you for six damn months. He was by your side helping you out every time you needed him. This is the respect you show him for all that help? You flake out on him when he gets patched, and now you accuse him of dealing dirty?”
“I took the money because I’m not a dumbass,” I snapped at him. “But dealing out an extra four hundred bucks like it’s nothing is suspicious, Ted. And I’m sorry I flaked, I don’t have a good excuse for that.” Though, I would call Madi a good excuse. They probably wouldn’t agree with me. “I’m trying to protect my interests in the club just as much as I’m trying to protect myself.”
“If you wa
nt to protect your interests,” Ted said as he stood, his fists clenched up at his sides. “Then stay out of it. If you don’t know anything and you’re questioned by a cop, then you can’t be implicated in anything we do. Keep your fucking ignorance,” with that he stalked out of the office.
It left me alone with Wilson, and I tried not to let Teddy’s temperament get to me. I prided myself on being a mellow, easy going guy considering all the shit I’d been through serving and then my discharge. It was hard to not let the distrust of a guy I called friend get to me. Wilson didn’t let me stew in it.
“What have you got besides the money he gave you?” he questioned.
“He gave me the money to work on his friend’s bike, a piece of shit he said he found in a rotted out shed. The guy stuck around while I did the work,” I explained meeting his steely gaze. At least he was hearing me out. “Guy offered me a deal on Percocets when he noticed me having problems getting around. You know what Percocets are?”
“Oxycodone,” he nodded. “I know what that is, I’ve taken them in my day. You think Jimmy is dealing in harder stuff with his friend?”
I looked down, studying the letters etched into my fingers. ‘Don’t give’ was inked into the upper part of my fingers. It got questioned sometimes, but I took it as meaning ‘don’t give up’ or ‘don’t give in.’ Now I looked at them, and I wasn’t sure which I wanted it to mean.
“Yea,” I looked back up at Wilson.
“You make accusations like that, you’ll need to have something to back it up; besides just your word.” He shifted in his seat and folded his tattooed arms over his chest. “Tillman vouched for the guy, he watched him work alongside you and bust ass doing grunt work that all the newbies do. Except for you. We gave you a lot of special treatment because of your situation,” he spoke seriously, like I was paying them a terrible insult by being suspicious.
“I’m not fucking special snowflake. I didn’t ask for special treatment,” I snapped, glaring at him now. “I’ve busted my ass just as much as Jimmy has. I’ve treated every bike you’ve put in front of me like it was better than my own Goddamn bike. I fucking helped with the plumbing when the bathrooms were backing up, and I cleaned out the shit. Tell me that I haven’t earned my patch, Wilson.” I felt the heat of my anger burning up my neck, “Tell me that I’ve wasted the last four years of my life, motherfucker.”
He raised his hands as if to ward me off, though he still looked the picture of calm. Like my words hadn’t affected him in the least.
“Not at all what I said,” he said plainly. “What I’m saying is you see what the kid does around here, and that’s all. When we do runs, things you aren’t involved in, we see how the kid is. If you’re going to accuse him of doing something that’ll give us a bad name, I want you to supply me with something I can work with besides your word and your gut.” He must’ve sensed that I was about to argue, that the fire of my anger still simmered at the surface. “I trust you, I know that you wouldn’t come to me if you didn’t think something was up. But for me to do anything about it, I would need something more than your word.”
I stood, still angry, but I nodded. “I’ll let it go then,” I growled as I started to the door, I had to get out of here.
“Don’t,” he stopped me. “Don’t let it go. Be vigilant. Keep your eyes and ears open. When you can give me something to back up your word, you come back to me with it. Don’t mind Tillman. Let him be sore,” I looked back at him. ”But if your gut is telling you something is up, you follow your gut.”
That was something, he was telling me he trusted me in a roundabout way. I guess that was something for my bruised ego.
13
I made a point to make myself scarce after that. Madi was still at work, and I had a few hours before I could get any sort of comfort from her. I opted to go for a long overdue ride. The last time I had gotten on my bike was Wednesday, and then after suffering for a day or two, I spent the rest of the time with Madi. I didn’t regret it. I’d been accused enough of being stupid in the last day that I wasn’t going to actively be stupid by wishing I hadn’t been with a beautiful girl. It was enough to have me watching the clock and waiting for the word that she was off work.
What do you do when your friends are pissed at you, and your girl is working? I didn’t have money I could play with, even with the couple of hundred bucks that Jimmy gave me. I felt like a sulking kid, and I didn’t want to let it affect how my attitude was when I met with Madi.
My options were simple. Go to the gym and work the anger out. This was how I kept myself mellow. I lifted weights and jogged until my muscles screamed and throbbed. I had to stop short, my ego still smarting. But by the time I hobbled out of the base’s gym, I had a text from Madi letting me know she was off and headed home.
‘I have the option of going home for a shower or coming over your house for a shower. If I come over your house, will you take a shower with me?’ I sent the text to her and try to sop up the sweat that was sure to make me stink.
‘I could be talked into a shower.’
‘Good, I’m on my way. Get naked.’
I didn’t wait for a response, I packed up my shit into my saddle bags and threw on my sweat soaked shirt. I got on my bike, and I made my way to the girl that was sure to soothe my rattled nerves. I pulled my medicine bag and fresh clothes from my saddle bags as soon as I got to her house. It took me maybe thirty minutes, and I had hoped she was naked when I knocked on the door. I knew better though, and she let me in with her sweet smile, and I already felt better. I left my figurative baggage at her door and let her lead me to her bathroom.
We undressed one another, the water was turned on, and I tugged her into the shower with the intent of doing something more than showering. I pressed her into the wall and silenced any sort of protests she might have had with a kiss. She didn’t fight me. Instead she held me close and touched me to the point that I forgot I needed an actual shower. She pulled her mouth from mine long enough to gasp out, “Need a condom.”
I wanted to go in raw, to sink into her without anything between us. But, I pulled away from her with a groan.
“Stay,” I growled at her. I went into the bedroom, not caring that I was leaving a trail of water. The box of condoms was where we left it Sunday, and I was faced with the fact that there was just one left. Shit. I stalked back to her, rolling it on without a care. “Remind me to get more,” I gave her a look, seeing her soaking and hungry for me like I was her.
I got a nod, and before anything else could distract us, I pounced. She was back against the wall, and I hefted her up easily, her legs around my hips. I was mindful enough to make sure she was wet, brushing my fingers against her clit.
“Now,” she breathed against me. “I want you in me now.”
That was all the encouragement I needed. I arched my hips, and I was in her sweet hold again. A day did nothing for my need for her. If anything it made me need her more. I pressed her into the wall as I thrust into her. I laid my brow against hers and put every ounce of frustration from dealing with Teddy and Wilson into each thrust I made into her. She held onto me, gasping and clinging to me like I was a life line. I thrust into her until I felt her gasping, her nails digging into my back. When she started that vice-like hold, I kept going. I wasn’t ready to quit yet. I pulled out and pulled out of the tight hold that her legs had on me.
“Stand up,” I ordered.
As soon as her feet were on the floor, I turned her around and pressed her hands against the wall.
“Keep your hands on the wall,” I commanded.
I didn’t think this through, and I realized that immediately when I went for reentry. She was significantly shorter than me. I was still dizzy with lust, so I managed to improvise on the fly. I contributed that bit of genius to the Army. Unable to crouch to the point I needed to, I just hefted her up so that I could slide back into her. She cried, and I shifted her closer to the wall, angling my body away from her as I began to thrust
into her again. It must’ve been a good angle because the noise she made was louder. It was something for my ego, so I hefted up one of her legs and kept going. Her head fell back onto my shoulder.
“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” her chant began again.
It became a chant for her that was broken only by hitched breaths and moans, I realized she was cresting on another orgasm. It made me feel damn good. I let go of everything and began to just enjoy the feel of her against me, the hold she had on me, and every little noise she made. My legs began to shake as the effort to just keep throwing myself up into her was becoming too much.
“I’m gonna cum,” I managed in her ear. “If you’re close let’s finished together.”
I got a nod, and I watched one of her hands disappear from the wall and drift down to where we were connected. I watched as she circled her clit with her fingers. I groaned and buried my face against her neck, it was so fucking hot.