Bear Trap

by Bijou Hunter

  My mind is on how persistence paid off in my case when I notice the brothers from City by Night enter the bar. They make a beeline for Clove downing another shot of vodka. She smiles at me and rubs my head in the same way she’d pet a dog.

  “You and this hair are the best things in this dive,” she says before frowning at Ford and Pax. “Are you here to pay for our drinks?” she asks and orders another shot.

  I consider suggesting she slow down, but I don’t want to make her look weak in front of these club guys.

  “How did you stay busy today?” Ford asks after the bartender hands him a beer.

  “We stayed in bed,” Clove says. “Nothing else to do in this shithole.”

  “Guess it’s good you got gone then,” Pax tells her. “Rawlins must be a fucking paradise for you.”

  “It is.”

  “You even found a pinup model to play with,” Ford says, grinning at his insult.

  “You know what Glitch has that you twats don’t?” Clove asks and downs a shot of vodka. I watch the way her lips caress the glass and wish I could lick them clean.

  “Farah Fawcett hair?” Pax asks, and my brain returns to the bar.

  “No, dummy, he has sweet precious youth,” she announces before laughing. “You old fuckers with your wives and kids are past your expiration dates.”

  Ford frowns at me. “You shouldn’t let her drink.”

  “I shouldn’t do a lot of things,” I say and plant a sloppy kiss on her smiling lips.

  My mouth claims Clove in a very public manner. These men might have no interest in tapping her plump ass, but that’s not the point. She is mine. Maybe one day she won’t be. For tonight, she is my woman, and anyone who looks at her wrong will feel my sweet precious youthful wrath.

  “I bet you can’t even do a hundred pushups,” Clove says once her lips are free. “Time hasn’t been kind to you grandpas.”

  Ford suddenly laughs and punches Pax. “Grandpa. She called us fucking grandpa.”

  “Yeah, I heard.”

  “I’m many things,” Ford says.

  Pax helpfully interrupts to say, “Yeah, like an asshole.”

  “Yeah,” Ford mutters, “like an asshole, but I am no one’s grandpa.”

  “As if you could really know where every single one of your swimmers ended up,” Clove challenges and pokes him in the chest. “I bet you got a girl preggo, and your little bastard princess grew up and got preggo by another dumb biker. That would make you a grandpa. And that’s why you can’t do a hundred pushups. Deep inside your balls, you know you’ve got grandkids running around somewhere.”

  “How the fuck old do you think I am?” Ford grumbles.

  “Fifty,” Clove says, bursting into laughter so violent she nearly falls on her ass.

  Laughing too, I keep her upright and order another shot. “A hundred dollars for a hundred pushups,” I say to the men. “That’s a dollar a pushup in case one of you isn’t so bright and can’t do math.”

  “I say you do them shirtless,” a woman’s voice calls out.

  Entering the bar, two attractive young women join us, one for each man. I assume they’re the enforcers’ wives. The one who spoke wraps her arms around Ford and smiles up at him. “Give everyone a show.”

  “Is that a hundred for each of us or are we sharing?” Ford asks.

  Pax kisses his woman and asks, “And if Ford can’t finish, does that mean I lose too?”

  “A hundred each,” Clove says and reaches out to shake the women’s hands. “Bebe, Shay, you haven’t met Glitch, now have you?”

  I nod at the women, figuring the blonde attached to Ford is Shay and the brunette hugging Pax is Bebe. They nod back at me, and quickly the conversation returns to pushups.

  “What if I can’t do them?” I ask Clove.

  “I’ve seen you at the gym. You can do a hundred in your sleep.”

  “What about drunk?”

  “You’re not drunk,” she says, giggling. “I’m drunk. You’re going to have to carry me soon.”

  “I’ll get one of those baby carriers and strap you to the front of me, so you can see everything that’s going on.”

  Clove laughs against me, her knees buckling more than once until I lift her enough to sit on a bar stool. By the time I turn back, I find Ford in a wife beater and a shirtless Pax.

  “Don’t be shy,” Bebe tells me before sharing a laugh with Shay. “We’re hooked on our men, so our judgments shouldn’t matter.”

  Their teasing means nothing after taking so much ribbing from Clove over the last few months. I slide out of my jacket and tug off my gray thermal shirt. Teetering on the stool, Clove enthusiastically claps and reaches out to caress my chest.

  Ford grunts and removes his wife beater. “Are we doing this shit or are you two planning to fondle each other all night?”

  I lower myself to the ground and get ready. Pax is already down. Soon, Ford joins us, and the counting begins. By twenty, the entire bar joins in. By fifty, my arms burn a bit. By seventy-five, Clove sits on the floor after toppling from her stool. Finally, we reach a hundred. I’m relieved my reflection in the mirror shows I’m less flushed than the other two.

  Standing, I pull Clove to her feet. She yanks a wad of cash from between her cans and throws the twenties at the men.

  “You earned this money, Grandpa,” she taunts Ford.

  Shay smiles at her man, “So sexy, Slugger.”

  “That’s right!” Clove cries out. “You two twats like to hit balls at the batting cage.”

  “I’m beginning to think getting her drunk was a bad idea,” Pax mumbles while yanking on his shirt. “She’s gone full lush.”

  Clove tries to help me get dressed, but I end up with my shirt on backward, and my jacket is upside down.

  “I’ll make a great mother,” she coos as I fix my clothes.

  “Do you want to hit balls with us?” Bebe asks once I’m dressed.

  Clove doesn’t answer for us. She’s too busy climbing inside my jacket to get closer to me. I fully support Clove’s affection even though I highly doubt she’ll be safe to drive anywhere.

  “Sure, but you foxes didn’t happen to drive here in a car, did you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Mind taking Clove with you? She’s too drunk to drive, and I can’t have her falling off my Harley if she rides bitch.”

  “I don’t ride bitch,” she says and stomps her foot. “It’s the act of a loser.”

  “Ginger rides bitch,” I point out while leading her out to the parking lot.

  “Oh, yeah,” Clove says, giggling. “I sometimes forget she’s in love and stupid now. I’m clearly in denial about her current state of wimpiness.”

  Once Clove is strapped into Shay’s car, I walk to my Harley. Surprising me, she rolls down the window and waves enthusiastically. The alcohol might be the trigger for her clingy mood, but I tell myself she got drunk so she could say and do what her sober self won’t allow.

  ➸ Clove ☆

  Every crack of the bat echoes in my fuzzy brain. I sit on top of a picnic table with Bebe and Shay, watching our men pound balls in separate cages. I think maybe there’s a bet going between them to see who hits the most, but I’m long past remembering the details.

  My last intelligent thought was how we should build a batting cage in Rawlins. In my spaced-out brain, I do wonder if we already have one, but I never figure out the answer before losing interest altogether.

  Shay and Bebe talk about their kids. I know Bebe has two daughters and I suspect she’s pregnant based on the snippets of their conversation. Shay, though, might or might not be the mother of the boys she mentions. I think I’m supposed to know the stories of these women, having met them through Ginger years ago. Unable to keep track of people’s kids, I just nod and smile.

  Nearby, Glitch pounds away at the balls shooting out from the machine. At some point, he asks if I wanted to give it a try. I shake my head and wish I hadn’t drank so much so quickly.
<
br />   “Darby suggests I drink cream soda to help with my morning sickness,” Bebe tells Shay.

  Hearing Darby’s name sends a booze-induced shudder through me. Joker’s ex-wife holds a special spot in Little Memphis. First, she lost her son, and then her marriage failed soon after. Despite their divorce, she remains close to Joker and the club. Under different circumstances, Darby would fit right into the crew. Like when an asshole broke into her house and, rather than hide like a bitch, she blasted him dead with a shotgun.

  Much like Ginger, Darby helped plenty of women over the years. Gave them a place to crash, found them jobs, and got them back on their feet. Two of the women she helped sit next to me right now.

  My mother’s face flashes in my mind, and I nearly reach out to touch her. I remember sitting on her lap and playing with her thick brown hair. She would hold me tight against her as if afraid to let me go. Her eyes were often swollen and bruised. Her lips always busted. I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t beaten down.

  Or when the smell of booze didn’t linger on her breath.

  The same kind of cheap alcohol I now reek of. Drinking killed her, but my father made her life unbearable without the poison to dull her pain. Now I’m overwhelmed by my feelings for Glitch, and I immediately reach for booze too. I guess I’m not so different from the woman I’ve viewed as weak.

  Why hadn’t she found a woman like Darby to help her? Shay and Bebe were lucky, but my mother never got the chance. She was alone in a place where she felt alien, trapped, and abandoned. No one cared about her in the US. Not my father’s family in Texas or our old neighbors who couldn’t deal with her broken English. No one fucking cared about her like Darby cared for these women or how Ginger watched out for me.

  “It’s okay,” Bebe says while rubbing my back.

  I realize I’m shaking. Crying too. Resting my face on my knees, I wrap my arms around my legs and work to steady my sobs.

  My mother wasn’t a bad person. She didn’t deserve to die so young or live so painfully. She made one single mistake in her life. Once she married my father, her fate was sealed.

  Except it wasn’t. She could have run away from him. Taken me and run to the police or a shelter. She could have even gone to a neighbor and asked for help. They might have laughed at her or called my father, but maybe they would have told her how to get free. She didn’t know the way things worked in this country, and those people could have helped her. Did she even try or did she choose to drink away those thoughts until the booze killed her and left me to fend for myself?

  “Clove, don’t cry,” Shay says, now sitting on the other side of me.

  These strangers attempt to comfort me in the way no one ever did my mother. People must have noticed her bruised face. Didn’t they see the constant marks on her throat from where my father choked her while screaming that she was an ugly whore? Did they notice and not care?

  Or did some try to help and my mother refused? Was she too proud or afraid to leave her suffering for the unknown?

  I have so many questions for her. I wish I could hold her like she did me and ask her why she didn’t save us. But I’ll never know the answers or comfort my long-dead mother.

  “Why am I thinking of this now?” I ask Shay and Bebe. “I didn’t think about my mom for years, but now she’s always in my thoughts. I see her everywhere. What’s wrong with me?”

  “That’s normal,” Bebe says. “Grief often springs up unexpectedly. I find myself thinking of my dead sister at the most random times. Sometimes when I’m happiest, I’ll feel guilty that Sabine can’t be happy too. Or I’ll get depressed that she will never see my kids or share experiences with me. I’ll even get angry at random times. You have to accept that grief doesn’t rise up conveniently like on the anniversary or when we’re prepared. It hits us when our guard is down like when we’re happy or relaxed.”

  Bebe’s words make sense. I’m relaxed in Rawlins. Boredom and restlessness aren’t problems I’ve dealt with before. Now they torment me. I’m edgy a lot too as if terrified of an unseen problem. Could these memories and unanswerable questions explain my fear? Is my life so fucking easy now that my past can rear its ugly head?

  Glitch said my moodiness was related to the cold season. The holidays don’t help either. My friends are settling into domesticated lives. Christmas was a festive time for everyone except me. As the odd woman out, I felt alone in a crew of women with people to love.

  Through my tears, I look at Glitch swinging at the balls. He cares about me, even though I refuse to let myself care too much about him. If loneliness leads to these painful memories I’m drowning in, could letting him closer help me be me again?

  ➸ Glitch ★

  In high school, I was on the baseball team for all of two games before the coach kicked me out for fighting. I didn’t really mind, having only joined to make my father happy. He wanted an athlete in the house, and I wanted his approval. We both learned to live with our disappointments.

  The kid I punched during practice asked if my stepmom killed my real mom. When I said no, he replied, “So your mom really did OD like a common crackwhore?” I hit him only once but watched him cry for nearly five minutes before the coach forced me to leave the field. Man, did those kid’s tears make me fucking happy.

  Clove’s tears, though, gut me. Once I realize she’s crying, I can’t reach her fast enough. Who caused her tears? Where are they now? How long should I hurt the fuckers before ending them?

  “I drank too much,” Clove mumbles through her tears. “I shouldn’t drink like a fucking lush.”

  The expression on her gorgeous face is like nothing I’ve seen before. The rawness in her eyes leaves me speechless, but words won’t help anyway.

  I tug Clove off the picnic table and into my arms. Caressing her hair, I keep my mouth shut and my embrace tight. Clove doesn’t push me away, instead sighing and leaning into the embrace. For the first time since we met, Clove lets me be a man taking care of his woman.

  Shay and Bebe sneak away at some point. My mind remains on the woman with her arms wrapped around my waist. Clove no longer cries, and her breathing slows until she relaxes against me.

  I don’t know how long we stand in the cold evening. The sound of bats against balls falls silent, and Ford eventually asks if we’re cool. I nod but remain silent.

  Words feel cheap. Just like they did when my mom died, and people talked about her as if she were a fucking saint. Words mean so little when the pain is so real.

  Clove wiggles her face free from where it’s pinned against my chest and looks up at me.

  “I know you were having fun but can we go back to the hotel, please?”

  I don’t think Clove has ever used the word “please” with me. In fact, two months ago, right after Thanksgiving, I became convinced she didn’t believe in using the word with anyone. Then at Ginger’s Christmas party, I heard Clove say “please” twenty-six times to other people. Apparently, her problem was with me, not the word.

  Until tonight.

  Sure, it’s a small damn thing. My relationship with Clove is always about cherishing the crumbs of her attention.

  After saying goodbye to Ford, Pax, and their women, I drive back to the hotel with Clove holding on tightly. I don’t know if she’s just uncomfortable riding bitch or if she worries she’s so drunk she’ll fall. I just know she likely leaves bruises around my waist by the time we park at the Holiday Inn.

  Arriving in the room, Clove immediately turns up the heater. Then she strips out of her clothes and turns on the shower. I expect her to shut the door on me, but she leaves it open.

  My shoulders hurt from the pushups and then hitting so many balls. Needing to work out more, I force my brain to focus on my gym routine rather than a crying Clove.

  I can’t stop thinking of her expression when I ditched the batting cages to make her happy. If she ever knew how much power such a look has on me, I’ll be her fucking slave for life.

  Appearing from th
e bathroom in a cloud of steam, Clove dries her long, dark hair with a towel until finding me on the bed. She stares at me for a minute, leaving me to feel like a bug she’s considering whether to squash.

  She drops the towel and crawls onto the bed. Wearing floral sleep shorts and a sleeveless top, she maintains an exotic, untouchable beauty. Clove sits against the headboard with her knees pressed to her stomach. She watches me and sighs.

  “Do you see your parents much?” she asks.

  “I stop by their place a few times a month. Nothing planned. I just visit when I’m in the mood.”

  “So you’re not that close?” she asks, studying me with her bloodshot eyes.

  “I’m not what my dad wanted in a son.”

  Fighting a little smile, she asks, “He’s jealous of your hair, isn’t he?”

  “Who isn’t?”

  “I haven’t met anyone yet,” she says and smiles in a soft, relaxed way that I rarely see. “Is it the biker thing that your dad has a problem with?”

  “He wanted me to be one of those all-American athletic types that he couldn’t be. I never had any interest. I was decent with sports, and I might have gotten good enough to do Triple-A, but I didn’t want that. He lost interest in me around that time. Since then, we’ve been going through the motions.”

  “And your mom?”

  “She died when I was a teenager.”

  “Then who’s the chick I saw with your dad that time?”

  “My stepmom. She helped raise me, but she was eighteen when I met her so I couldn’t think of her as my mom. She was more like a sister.”

  “Is she at least nice to you?”

  “Yeah. She’s a good cook too. Better than my mom.”

  “How did your mom die?” Clove asks, clearly unsure if she wants to know the answer.

  “Got hooked on Oxy after back surgery and OD’d when she mixed it with booze.”

  “Alcohol is the devil’s spit.”

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, I say, “I like it fine.”

  “I did too, but alcohol only dulls the pain. How can you fight a problem if you’re too drunk to see it?”