HORIZON MC

by Clara Kendrick

  “You have to give yourself a little bit of credit, Brody, come on.” Jack inhaled sharply. “Gotta go. The booth’s yours.”

  “Mine?” I laughed, but I was puzzled when he shimmied out of it. “I have a lot of work to do. I’m not going to just sit here and lounge where the hell are you going?”

  I turned to try and stop him, and Nadine was standing there, right in front of me. It was like she’d never left, as gorgeous as the first day she’d blown into town.

  “Hi,” she said shyly.

  “Hey. Hi. Hello.” And I had apparently turned into a manic mess. “It’s… Nadine, it’s so good to see you. Really. It is.” My voice was shaking. How could I be so nervous?

  “It’s good to see you, too,” she said, looking around. “And good to see so many people coming out.”

  “Jack says it’s going to be a weekly thing, now,” I said, and she lit up.

  “That’s amazing. This has been a long time coming, Brody, and you deserve it.”

  “Thank you. Thank you for saying that. So much.”

  “I’m saying it because it’s true.”

  “Are you doing okay? You didn’t have to move out. But thank you for leaving the house in the state you did. I don’t think it’s ever looked so good, even when I first moved in.”

  “Lesson I learned growing up always leave things in better condition than when you found them.” Her smile was a little tight, and I wondered if it was a lesson her father had taught her. Did it cost her very much to learn it?

  “Well, thank you. Do you mind me asking where you’re staying?”

  “I don’t mind at all. I’m just at the motel.”

  “You don’t have to spend your money.”

  “I’m not. I’m cleaning for them.”

  I laughed in spite of things between us feeling a little tenuous. “You? Cleaning?”

  “They pay me by letting me stay for no charge.”

  “I’m sure Haley and Chuck would put you up, and you wouldn’t have to clean anything.”

  “I didn’t want to make things awkward between you and your friends. They’re your family.”

  “They’re yours, too.”

  “I just wanted to apologize about everything,” she said. “That’s why I’m here. Well, I did really want to try your beer, too. Is it like the baby of the brew I destroyed?”

  “In a way, yeah. Kind of like its sibling, maybe.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “It is. Kind of like parents screwing up the first kid but then mastering the second.” I smiled. “You did me a favor by throwing out that first mash. I needed to just cut my losses and start something new.”

  “I’m sorry for trying to push you away,” she blurted out, and now we were doing that, it seemed. Talking about the messed-up relationship we’d shared. “I’m sorry. I was hurting you to try to get you to leave me, because I didn’t think I could leave you.”

  “Sorry about your luck,” I said, giving her a tiny smile. “I wasn’t about to go anywhere. Not when I had someone like you.”

  “Someone as screwed up as me?”

  “Someone as wonderful as you.”

  “You don’t want me, Brody. I promise.”

  “That’s a promise you can’t keep.”

  The silence between us stretched into awkward territory and spiraled so far beyond that place that she cleared her throat and practically restarted our conversation.

  “Well, I didn’t want to miss your big day,” Nadine said, casting her eyes downward. “Is it…is it okay that I’m here?”

  There was so much I wanted to say. I didn’t believe for a moment she was here for my beer, first of all, just like I didn’t believe everyone else was here for it. I just wanted to know what she wanted to do about us. I wanted to continue the conversation she’d plunged into before both of us backed ourselves into separate corners. I just didn’t know how to get there.

  “Of course it’s okay you’re here,” I said, instead of all the other things I’d wanted to. “You’re a Horizon MC Bar alum, after all. This place is your home.”

  “You know, it did feel like home rolling back into the bar.” The way the corners of her mouth quirked upward seemed almost involuntary. “There’s something about this place that makes me happy.”

  Something, and not someone? “Careful,” I said, trying to swallow with my impossibly dry mouth. “Rio Seco will get its hooks in you and then you’ll never leave.”

  “I think it already has,” she mused.

  “I tried to warn you.”

  “I think it’ll be okay.” It was a full smile, now. “There are worse places than Rio Seco to love.”

  Places, and not people? God, I had to stop with that. It was torturing me.

  “How have you been?” I asked, cognizant that this was awkward, that this question was loaded, that if she hadn’t been doing very well, it was because of me. Because of what I was. Because of what I couldn’t change about myself. God, if it had been anything else the fact that I snored, that I liked and brewed craft beer, that my name was Brody and my hair was blond. There were nose strips and surgeries and sleeping positions for snoring. I could simply stop liking craft beer so much, brew it elsewhere or not at all. Submit the paperwork and fees to change my name, die my hair or shave my head completely bald.

  I just couldn’t go back into the past and change the fact that I had been a Marine, and that was the biggest problem Nadine had with me.

  “I’ve been all right,” she said. “Just missing…Rio Seco.”

  “It’s got a way of worming its way into your heart.”

  “It does. I really fell in love.”

  “You know, I guess they always say this in the movies and stuff, but there’s probably enough room in this town for the two of us.”

  Nadine laughed. “I think they say the opposite of that, in fact. That there isn’t enough.”

  “I mean, if that’s the way you think, I could leave,” I offered as casually as I could, as if it would be that easy. As if I would give up everything that I could to make Nadine happy my home, my town, my bar, my friends.

  That elicited another laugh out of her, but it was more incredulous in tone. “I wouldn’t want that.”

  “I just want you to be happy, Nadine. I really, really do.”

  “Don’t you understand?” I only realized then that the smile that had frozen on her face was more of a baring of teeth, that the shining in her dark eyes was tears. “I wouldn’t love Rio Seco unless you were in it, too.”

  I was only vaguely aware of my mouth working, trying to come up with something to say to thatand what was there to say to that? when Haley appeared beside us, a little line of worry wrinkling her brow even as she smiled.

  “Nadine, I’m dying to hear about your next big adventure,” she gushed. “Will you tell me what you’re planning on doing next? I hope you know I live vicariously through all your crazy travels.”

  “I, um, don’t really know that I have anything planned,” Nadine admitted, coughing a little to hide the emotion that probably hadn’t been hidden at all. “The travels just sort of pop up, just like Rio Seco did. I’m just not convinced that Rio Seco is done with me.”

  And by Rio Seco, she meant me, didn’t she? She’d just finished informing me that she’d fallen in love with this town because I’d been in it.

  “Could we go somewhere to talk?” I asked Nadine, giving Haley a pointed look as she backed off, hands held up. I knew she had my best interest at heart, but Nadine and I needed to get through this if we were going to have any sort of closure at all. “If you don’t mind.”

  “I think talking would be a really good thing for us.”

  “Did your brother come?”

  “He had to go back to New York City.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  She looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “I thought things were kind of awkward between you two.”

  “I think we came to an understa
nding.”

  “Where do you want to go to talk?” she asked, still looking a little confused.

  “Hallway’s fine, by the office,” I said. “I just don’t want any more interruptions.”

  “Agreed.”

  She followed me back there, and I unleashed everything I’d held inside.

  “I still love you, you know. I’ve loved you for a really long time. It’s probably a little creepy, but I think I even loved you before we were inside city limits for Rio Seco. I feel so much for you, but I understand why we might never be together.”

  Nadine stared at me. “Brody…what?”

  “I just want you to not have any doubts. I love you. I want to be with you. But I know that you don’t want to be with me.”

  “You… I… how?”

  “Your brother came to talk to me. He told me why you don’t like the Marines.”

  She winced. “Was it a shovel talk?”

  “No. Nothing like that. He just explained some things that I had some lingering doubts about, and told me to look at your photos.”

  “My brother told you to look at my portfolio online?” she asked, staring down at her feet as she scuffed her boots against the floor. “Did you?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t.” It was a painful admission to make, but I had to confess. “I love your work so much that I didn’t think I could handle it. It makes me love you too much to look at your photos.”

  “I think maybe some things might fall into place if you look at it.”

  “I’m sorry that I didn’t.” I could’ve added that I’d forgotten with all the hullabaloo about today at the bar, about the brew I was promoting and how nervous about it I was, but that would’ve been a lie. I hadn’t forgotten about it. Not for a second. Even when I’d been connecting the kegs and arranging the bottles and making sure everything was perfect for my big, stupid debut, I had thought about Nadine, about her photos, about the way we could never be together even if we did love each other.

  “Could you…” She scrunched up her face as she trailed off, then tried again. “Could you do it now? Please?”

  “Yeah, if you want me to,” I said, fumbling for my phone and nearly dropping it. “I’ll do it right now.”

  “I would…that would mean a lot to me, if you could.”

  “Yeah, here. I have it saved as one of my favorites,” I said, pointing at the icon on my phone’s display before poking it. “You’re the only favorite I have saved except for breweries. That should mean something.” Stupid. I was so stupid.

  “That’s sweet.” Nadine fidgeted as the page loaded, then pointed. “There. That’s the link for the new photos.”

  “New?” I thumbed the link she’d indicated, waited. “Have you been taking more photos?”

  “Not lately. Nothing recent. These were the most recent.”

  And whatever I was going to say next died in my throat as the first photo took up my entire display. It was my hand grasping the throttle of my motorcycle, the desert providing a backdrop. The entire premise was simple, but the way Nadine had captured itmy hand gripped tightly, the veins and tendons standing out against my sun-tanned skin, in the act of twisting the throttle to accelerate, the rocks and gullies of the desert behind it somehow echoing the topography of my hand made it special. But that’s what she did, wasn’t it? Looked at the mundane and somehow made it extraordinary through her eyes, through her lens. She saw the beauty in everything.

  “Nadine, this is…”

  “That’s just the first one,” she said, impatient. “Just swipe for the next one.”

  The next one was one of my face, looking out into the desert, the landscape reflected in my sunglasses. The lenses acted as the canvas for the landscape, but I was somehow a part of it, too. My skin color, tan burnished by wind and sun from being on the bike, complemented the tawny colors of the desert at midday. Those sands weren’t always that particular shade. They purpled in the evening, just after the sun sank below the horizon, and at sunrise again the next morning, they’d look like someone had set them ablaze. Nadine had captured an ephemeral moment and made it permanent.

  The next photo was a remarkable selfie that she had to have snapped while we were riding together. It looked like there’d been a third person there, though, documenting our time together, even if I knew there hadn’t been. Nadine was laughing and tossing her head in the wind, the road spiraling behind us like a ribbon unfurling, and I was grinning, her mirth infectious, probably about to reprimand her for squirming on the back of the bike, throwing us off balance. We looked like two people in love, embarking on a wonderful adventure.

  There were so many photos snap after snap of the desert and my bike plying it, detail shots of machinery that were recognizable and abstract at the same time. A close-up of sand raked by wind was balanced with spokes from my wheel the shot Nadine used on the fake beer bottle labels to try and convince Jack to host my beer tasting at the bar. There was a shot of the sky, clear and impossibly blue, then a shot of the sunset reflected in the gleaming metal of the bike. It was like Nadine had taken the desert and my motorcycle and married them, making them interchangeable and essential to each other.

  More than anything, though, the photos were an obvious love letter. I felt so much love scrolling through them the shape of my helmet, seen from the back; Nadine’s hands around my waist, hanging on as the pavement streaked by below; one of my dusty boots balanced as we rolled to a stop or got ready to take off again from the shoulder of the road, sand mingling with the asphalt. The artistry of the shots was undeniable, but so was the love I felt when looking through them. I didn’t know if others would be able to sense it, but I could. Simon had been able to see it, and tell me about it. And Nadine had recognized it in her work enough to urge me to go through the new folder in her portfolio. I didn’t have to revisit any of her other photo collections to know this was a feature only in this particular collection. She had breathed love into every single shot.

  She loved me. She loved me, and this was how she was telling me.

  I looked at her, realized that she had watched my face through the entire slideshow, that she’d seen the emotions that had played out over my features.

  She loved me, and I loved her more than ever. Why was it still so difficult, then? When two people loved each other, it should be easy to just be together. If she had felt like this the entire time, the complications should’ve simply melted away. I knew it wasn’t as painless as that, though, and that’s what had my stomach in knots. Was Nadine about to tell me that she loved me even though we couldn’t be together? Because I didn’t think I could survive that speech.

  “These are beautiful photos,” I said. “Maybe I’m being biased, but I think it’s my favorite folder in your portfolio.”

  “I fell in love with Rio Seco, with the desert here, the mountains,” she said. “But I fell in love with them because of you. Because you loved them so much. And I fell in love with you.”

  “I love you,” I said. “I always have. Even from that night I almost hit you with my motorcycle. It’s only grown since then.”

  “I’ve loved you, too. I still love you. It’s just…there are things you don’t understand, things I haven’t been able to talk to you about before now.”

  “Your brother and I talked about it,” I said, taking a shot in the dark. “He told me everything about your relationship with your father.”

  Nadine flinched, meaning I’d hit the mark. “Simon likes to stick his nose into other people’s business.”

  “He cares about you.”

  “He’s a nosy bastard.”

  “I’m sorry that your father wasn’t there for you,” I said. “And I’m sorry that his behavior soured you on the Marines, especially.” I could’ve said something cliché and stupid, like “not all Marines are like that,” but I doubted it would bring Nadine any comfort at all. I represented something that had caused her pain all her life, bringing a host of problems and hang-ups all the wa
y.

  “I wish it wasn’t like that,” she said, her tone earnest. “I don’t want it to be like that.”

  I swallowed. “Then don’t let it be like that.” It was a lot to ask, to urge her to shuck off the trauma of her childhood, the neglect that had made her mistrust everything that came out of the military. But I wasn’t asking her. I was begging her.

  “I wish it was as easy as that, Brody.”

  “I love you. That will never change, and I want you to know that.” I took her hand, squeezed it when I realized she was trembling. “This is your decision. I’m not going to force you into anything. Whatever you choose, I will always love you.” And that candle would always be burning within me, as pathetic as that was. I had never met anyone like Nadine before in my life, and I didn’t anticipate that there was anyone else like her. She was too special, too unique, too wonderful. The saddest part was that if I ever tried to be with someone in the future, Nadine would be the person against whom my future love would be measured.

  And, damn, that was an unfair measurement.

  “How am I supposed to do this?” she asked, and I realized her eyes were bright with tears, her mouth tight with frustration and despair, lips thin, pressed together. “Can you tell me? Just point me in the right direction. I’ll do whatever it takes. I want to be with you. I want the memories of my father to just…go away. I hate them. I hate him for making me incapable of trusting men.”

  “I don’t know what the right way to do this is,” I said. “I just know that I love you, and if you love me, that’s enough of a good thing to be a healthy start, right?”

  “That’s what I want,” she said. “It’s what I want more than anything in the world. I just…I’m scared, Brody.”

  “What are you scared of?”

  “Of letting you down. Of not being able to move past the damage my father did.”

  “You will never let me down, okay? I don’t care if you try to push me away, if you flirt with every single person in this town, if you ignore me. Whenever you’re ready to come back, I’ll be here.”