HORIZON MC

by Clara Kendrick

  Everyone at work commented on how the two of us glowed, but if they’d known it was from a steady diet of stellar sex, they would’ve regretted commenting in the first place.

  We got over the hiccup of growing pains that come with people living with each other and got…used to each other, almost. Only there was no drudgery involved. Every moment with Nadine was like a breath of fresh air.

  “I just want you to know that I really like this,” I told her, watching the way her cigarette smoke curled up to the ceiling after our latest sex session. I’d bought her an ashtray, but she’d just laughed at me and told me to return it, explaining that the last few cigarettes she had were the end of a pack someone had given her and she wasn’t planning on continuing the habit after they were gone.

  “Like watching me smoke after we fuck?” She blew a cloud my way and grinned at me. “Very retro, right? Sexy cancer sticks.”

  “You’re the one still smoking them,” I laughed. “I don’t understand why.”

  “Because they’re there, that’s why.” She lifted a smooth, beautiful shoulder in a lazy, half-shrug. “Someone gave them to me, and I’ll smoke them until the pack is empty.”

  “Someone…like a guy?”

  She exhaled another cloud of smoke before dropping the rest of the cigarette into an empty beer bottle. “Are we really going to have this conversation?”

  “What conversation?”

  “The one where I have to remind you that I’m a human being and have shared my body and my life with other human beings prior to meeting you.”

  “Nadine, I’m not an idiot.”

  “No? Because you really almost sounded like one, there.”

  “I was only curious.” A stray thought made it past my filters. “He must have been important to you.”

  “Brody, everyone is important to me. Every single person I’ve crossed paths with. And everyone should be important to you, too.”

  “I didn’t mean to suggest anything”

  “What you were suggesting was that I was hung up on someone. You were casting around for an object for your jealousy.”

  “I just wondered about the cigarettes, that’s all. They didn’t seem like you. I thought the only reason you were smoking them was to try and hold on to…I don’t know, some kind of essence of whoever gave them to you. The cigarettes just seemed important, somehow.”

  Nadine propped herself up on her side to study me, and I braced for impact. “I like to really experience a place, when I go there. If something that I would regularly consider to be taboo is commonplace there, I stretch outside of my comfort zone. That’s an important part of traveling. Letting yourself get swept up in the culture instead of worrying about what others might think about you back home.”

  “I think you’re most beautiful when you’re talking about your travels.”

  Nadine laughed. “Flattery won’t get you out of this discussion about your jealousy.”

  “Alleged jealousy. I was only curious.”

  “Would you still have this alleged jealousy if you knew the person who gave me the cigarettes was a woman?”

  I’d come not thirty minutes before, but I was as hard as a rock again. “Um, is that true?”

  She frowned at me in confusion for a moment before peeking under the covers. “You absolute stereotype!” she hollered, shrieking with laughter. “She was just a friend! Nothing romantic happened.”

  “A guy can dream, can’t he?”

  “You’re the worst.”

  “And you’re the best. A goddess. Sexy. Wonderful.”

  She stubbed her cigarette out and grinned at me. “Nothing romantic happened…with that girlfriend.”

  “Nadine, you will be the death of me.”

  I drew her to me, she opened herself for me, and I willed it to be true. I would die happy knowing Nadine was the cause of it. I was that in love with her.

  Chapter 3

  “Love looks good on you, brother,” Sloan said, slapping me on the back as we lounged in the club booth one afternoon.

  “Would you stop?” I complained, even if I couldn’t quite rid myself of the sappy grin that stretched across my face.

  “Oh, he looks like a dope,” Jack teased as I passed him a beer. “God, if we could bottle that feeling, we’d all be rich. Wouldn’t have to peddle something as pedestrian as beer ever again.”

  “What feeling?”

  “The one when you’re newly in love, when it’s all still fresh.” He grinned at me. “Better than craft beer, even, I’d bet.”

  “Speaking of craft beer,” I said, brightening, “I have a proposal for you.”

  “Aw, man.”

  Sloan laughed. “You walked right into that one, Jack.”

  “I guess I did.”

  “Just hear me out,” I protested. “Jesus, you guys are so judgmental. I have a home brew that I’m going to have ready before long, and I wanted to know if you thought we could host a tasting here at the bar.”

  Jack frowned. “I don’t know, Brody…”

  “It’s accessible,” I said quickly. “It’s not like those specialty brews that come out tasting like licorice or fruit or anything weird. It’s a straightforward, honest brew.”

  “Does it taste like those pine tree beers you were trying to push on us that one time?” Sloan asked.

  “Pine tree beers?” I frowned at him. “You mean, hops? IPAs?”

  “Tasted like pine trees.”

  “No, it’s look, there are hops, but it’s nothing hardcore. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. People are going to like it. I like it. I’m proud of it.”

  “Could we maybe do a limited tasting?” Jack asked. “Like an exclusive party?”

  I sagged a little. “Just the guys and our girls, then?”

  “Is that too much to ask?” He spread his fingers on the table. “You know the clientele here, Brody. They like the cheap stuff, just like I do. I don’t want to frighten them off with ‘small batch’ and ‘mouthfeel’ and all of that.”

  “I think you don’t give enough credit to our customers,” I argued. “I think Rio Seco is ready for a craft brew revolution. You’re the one who’s holding it back.”

  Jack opened his mouth to reply, but Nadine cheerfully interrupted him. “Hey, guys! Is Brody telling you all about the awesome brew he made?”

  “Yes…” Jack looked suspicious, and Sloan buried his face into his beer mug before pouring himself some more from the pitcher.

  “Did he tell you he’s bottling it and calling it Horizon MC Brew?” She smiled politely. “And he’s using one of my photos for the label.”

  “There’s enough of the brew to bottle?” Jack peered at me.

  “Yeah,” I said, caught a little off balance at Nadine’s sudden and unexpected involvement. “It’s small batch uh, limited release might be a better way to describe it.”

  “Not better, just different,” Jack observed. “Could we see a sample of it? The bottle, I mean.”

  “I have a design right here,” Nadine said, pulling out her phone. “This is just a mockup, remember. It’ll be a lot more meaningful in person.”

  I craned my neck to see just what she had on her screen as she handed it to Jack, and my breath caught in my throat. It looked…well, it looked real. It looked like my dream come true a beer that I had brewed and bottled myself. The label was just an added bonus, a close-up shot that Nadine had taken of the spokes of one of my motorcycle’s wheels, “Horizon” emblazoned over it.

  “That looks really nice,” Sloan said. “Could be good marketing for the bar.”

  “Are you in charge of marketing here?” Jack asked.

  “I mean, I spend enough time here that it feels like I have a little bit of an ownership in it, so yeah.” Sloan preened a little. “Director of communications, maybe?”

  “That’s basically my job,” I informed him. “Though I could use an assistant.”

  “I’m better than that,” he informed me, snooty.

/>   “So, Jack, what do you think?” Nadine accepted her phone back from him, even though he looked reluctant to give it up. “Think it’ll be good for the bar, having Brody’s brew launch party here?”

  “I’ll have to think about it,” he admitted. “Brody, why didn’t you tell me it was going to be called Horizon? You should’ve led with that.”

  “I don’t know.” Because I hadn’t known. All of that extra stuffthe bottling, the pictures, the name had been Nadine, and she hadn’t clued me in on any of it.

  “I think it’s a really good idea,” Sloan threw in. “What, are you self-conscious about it?”

  I shrugged again. “Think about it, Jack. I’m going to go, uh…do something. Some work.”

  I pursued Nadine back to the bar, snagging her hand as she put her phone away.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “What was what?”

  “You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

  “Don’t be angry about it. I thought I was helping.”

  I backpedaled. “No, no, no, I’m not angry. I’m shocked. Surprised. Delighted.”

  “You don’t sound delighted.” She eyed me.

  “I’m just it looked real, Nadine. How in the hell did you pull that off?”

  “Just a little photo editing witchcraft I pulled together last minute when I saw you sinking over there.”

  “You…I’m so confused. Grateful, but confused.”

  “I’ve been taking some photos of your bikeI hope you don’t mind and just wrapped one of those around a generic photo of a beer bottle really quick. The words are a no-brainer. I mean, what else would you call it?”

  “It really is witchcraft, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not really. Just photo editing. Something I do a lot.”

  “It was really impressive.”

  She beamed at me. “You thought so?”

  “Absolutely. And I think you floored Jack. He usually just shuts me down without even suggesting he’ll think about it. This is as far as I’ve ever gotten with him.”

  Nadine’s smile faded a little. “Really?”

  “He’s a cheap beer kind of guy.”

  “He should still support you. I think having a tasting night would be a great thing for the bar.”

  “You and me both.”

  “But not Jack.”

  “He just needs some time to come around.” I snuck my arm around her waist and squeezed a little. “Especially with that genius intervention you staged.”

  She laughed. “It was an intervention, wasn’t it? You were crashing and burning.”

  “You know, I would love to show my appreciation for your intervention.” My fingers drifted downward, cloying, suggestive.

  Nadine shuddered a little, covered it with a giggle, turned into me. “What, exactly, is it that you’re suggesting?”

  “If you accompany me to my office, I think I could come up with some kind of reward.”

  The reward entailed Nadine spread-eagled over the desk, me simultaneously eating her out and trying to cover her mouth, worried someone would overhear her moans and shouts and come investigate.

  “Remind me to do more nice things for you,” she said, sweaty and panting after her third orgasm. It was just another day in my perfect, perfect life.

  We spent a lot of time in bed. I worried that we should get out some time, but it was so easy just to stay in, talk until we ran out of things to say, then make love to each other. It was a beautiful thing.

  “Tell me about yourself,” Nadine coaxed, snapping a photo of me while my face was still blissful from orgasm.

  I laughed at her. “You’re the one who’s been living with me. I’m sure you know more than anyone else.”

  “Why are you so shy?” she wondered aloud, looking back over the pictures she’d taken on the display of her camera.

  “Shy? I’m not shy at all.”

  “You’re closed off.”

  “What?”

  She snapped another picture, then examined it as if it was going to give her the answers she was looking for. “It’s easy for you to make friends, isn’t it?”

  “I guess,” I said slowly, not sure where this was going. “Everyone always seems to like me.”

  “Uh-huh.” Making friends easily was supposed to be a good quality, wasn’t it? Why was Nadine making me feel like it was the worst thing in the world? “And how many good friends would you say you have?”

  “All of my friends are good friends,” I said, confused.

  “All of them?”

  “Yeah.” I thought. She was making me doubt myself, though, and I hated that. “All of them.”

  “How many of your friends know what your relationship is like with your parents?”

  I recoiled. “That isn’t something that comes up in casual conversation.”

  “Good friends have conversations that range far beyond the idea of casual,” Nadine pointed out. Another photo snapped.

  “Stop taking photos of me,” I said, feeling my forehead wrinkle in a scowl. She took a photo of that, too. “Seriously, Nadine.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t like you taking photos of me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re trying to provoke me.”

  “I’m doing no such thing.” She stared at me for a moment, her eyes sparkling, before she snapped another photo. I lunged for her camera, and she rolled away, giggling wildly.

  “What is this all about?” I complained, giving up on my pursuit of the camera. She probably had dozens of crappy photos of my stupid face with a range of emotions on it. That made me feel uncomfortably vulnerable, like I was more naked than naked, if that was even possible.

  “I’m just trying to get to know you, Brody,” she said, smoothing her hand over my forehead. I relaxed my scowl under her touchit was impossible not to and leaned into her smooth palm.

  “You already know everything about me,” I said.

  “I don’t. I barely know anything. What’s your relationship like with your parents? When did you get your first motorcycle? Why do you like beer so much? Have you always been a bartender? What is your most secret dream for yourself?”

  “Why is any of that important?”

  Nadine actually pouted, and I wondered if it was a diversionary tactic something to make me do what she wanted.

  “It’s important to me because you’re important to me,” she said. “You know so much more about me than I do about you.”

  “I think it’s impossible to know everything about you,” I said. “You’re constantly surprising me. Like with the beer bottle and label.”

  “But you know about the places I’ve been, the things I’ve done,” she said. “I don’t know anything about you outside of Rio Seco. Have you always been here?”

  “No. I grew up in Florida.”

  “Florida! Really?”

  I laughed. “Why are you so surprised?”

  “Did you not like being near the beach?”

  “I liked the beach just fine. Just happened to love the desert better. And the mountains.”

  “But how did you even find your way to New Mexico after Florida?”

  I shrugged. “I was in the Marines. When my time abroad was up, Florida didn’t feel like home anymore.”

  Nadine just looked at me, her eyes wide.

  “It’s not a big deal,” I assured her. “Nothing overly dramatic or anything like that. It just didn’t feel right, returning to Florida. I felt like a different person after the Marines, and I decided I wanted to try to make a new life for myself.”

  “Different. You were different how?”

  “I just left Florida as one version of myself and came back to it as a different one. I don’t know. A lot of people say they have formative experiences when they serve in the military, like it completely changes their lives. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but it was pretty important to me. My parents weren’t really big on discip
line. They didn’t care if I got good grades or not, just that I showed up. And in the Marines, things were different. I was supposed to be the best to be among the best. Being encouraged pushed to be a better version of myself in the Marines led me to dream bigger.”

  Nadine was silent, but something like a dam had broken inside of me. I’d never really talked with anyone about any of this. The rest of the Horizon guys were my good friends, but it wasn’t like we all bared our souls to one another on a regular basis.

  “I’m not going to sit here and say anything stupid like I resented my parents or whatever, because that’s not the case,” I continued. “My parents did the best they could, but they probably didn’t push me because it just wasn’t familiar to them. I just didn’t want to go back into that environment knowing that I could be something beyond anything I used to expect.”

  “So…being a bartender was something beyond what you would’ve been if you’d never left Florida?” Nadine looked dubious, but it was probably because I wasn’t doing a good job of explaining myself. Just like water tended to careen over dams if they broke, words were leaving my mouth with no rhyme or reason.

  “Well, I’m not a bartender. Not all the time. I fill in here and there, but I’m the general manager of the bar. For all intents and purposes, I handle everything that goes on. Jack’s the owner, but I’m more like the one who handles everything. I travel all the time to get to know new brands and breweries to bring in to the bar. And that’s inspired me to make brews that I want to drink,that I think other people might want to drink, too. When I close my eyes and think hard enoughor maybe in my own worst nightmares I can see myself back in Florida, still having a love for beer but only enough to buy a case every night at the gas station.”

  “All thanks to the Marines.” Nadine still had that skeptical look on her face.

  “I don’t know that the Marines can take all the credit. It’s just the way things turned out.”