Havoc (Los Desperados MC)

by Kara Parker

  “I’m just looking at your pictures, tough guy,” I said, pointing to the youthful picture on the wall.

  “That’s right. I was always the tough biker you see in front of you,” he walked towards me and I ran my hands up his firm chest and around his neck and he pulled me to him for a deep kiss. He was still warm from the shower and smelled like soap and after we kissed I leaned against his chest and his hands rubbed my back. “We can’t stay here tonight,” Julian said. “The clubhouse isn’t secure.”

  “All right,” I said, “But it’s still early. What about Paddy’s? Isn’t that where all the other Los Desperados will be?”

  “You want to go to Paddy’s?” he asked incredulously.

  “Yeah, I could go for a drink,” I said giving him a crooked grin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I rode with Julian again; my arms wrapped around him as we sped down the streets. But while riding with him was nice, I preferred to ride alongside him. Riding next to him was like dancing and racing all at the same time. I could still remember the thrill of our chase the other day. He had been so smart and quick on his feet; no one had ever kept up with me like that. We could weave our way down busy streets, racing past slow-moving cars and trucks. We could drive to secret destinations, just the two of us.

  I would need to get my own bike soon. Old ladies rode on the back of their fella’s bike, but I was no old lady. If I were going to join Los Desperados (and I hadn’t officially decided yet), I would need to prove my worth early and often. Not that there was anything wrong with being an old lady; it just wasn’t for me. But at that moment old ladies surrounded me. They had stayed with their men to help finish protecting the fort and now that the wall was covered up and a guard had been left, we were all going to celebrate.

  Paddy’s pub was jumping when we arrived. There were lines and lines of bikes outside and no cars at all. Julian parked with the rest of the bikes and as I stepped off I felt Julian’s hand on my waist. The bar’s outdoor bright lights and neon signs had all been turned off; tonight it was Los Desperados only. I had no idea what I would see inside; I was just glad Julian was with me. He guided me past the bouncer and inside and then back towards a long table filled with bikers and their ladies. Paddy’s was a large bar, the lighting low and with Christmas lights strung up along the walls for some extra color. The beer was cheap, the shots were generous, the DJ was good, and an impromptu dance floor had been made in a darkened corner of the bar. It was exactly where I wanted to be at that moment.

  I thought I would be tired or weary of noise after the battle of that morning. But it was just the opposite. The shakiness had worn off and now I wanted noise and dancing and drinking and laughter. Silence and peace were the last things I wanted. After this morning I had been reminded of how short life can be; it’s even shorter for those of us in biker gangs. It’s why we live hard and party harder. It could all be over in an instant and we didn’t want to have to think of regrets and missed opportunities in our last minutes. We weren’t the kind of people who liked quiet nights at home with a book and a cup of tea. We wanted to be out in the world, making memories and friends and drinking more than was good for us.

  I sat down next to Julian and it only took a minute for a beer and a shot to appear in front of me. I glanced at Julian and he was looking at me. I picked up the shot and we clinked glasses and I threw back the whiskey and followed it with a swig of beer. The bar was rowdy and loud and everyone was cheering and laughing and having a good time. I couldn’t help but be infected with their sense of victory and excitement.

  The bar was filled with Los Desperados brothers and their old ladies. They sat two-deep along the bar and every table and booth in the place was filled. The bar was smoky and loud with conversation and laughter. The sights and sounds and smell were all familiar. I had spent many a nights like this with The Bandits. It felt like coming home.

  “So, she just goes everywhere you go now?” one of Los Desperados called to Julian over the table and I watched as several of the guys behind him snickered and elbowed each other. The man looked greasy and dirty. He had a shirt covered in food stains and an ancient trucker cap on his head. He looked like every anti-smoking advertisement I had ever seen.

  “What’s the matter, jealous?” I asked as I finished my beer and signaled for another.

  “I ain’t jealous of no woman,” the man spit at me.

  “Oh, really, Mick?” a woman called over to him. “I heard the girl’s the best driver anyone’s ever seen. Hell, The Bandits just sent a whole battalion over to get her back.”

  I nodded at the woman in thanks and, in response, the rest of the old ladies started to laugh and Mick sunk deeper and deeper into his beer. The men around him were looking a little bit confused about how quickly their ladies had put them back in line.

  “Were you really lead driver for The Bandits?” one of them asked me.

  “Yup,” I answered.

  “So what was your longest ride?” another one of the women asked me.

  “LA to Mexico City, no stops, twenty million in gold watches and necklaces in the back. I went by myself, no blockers. I didn’t want to arouse suspicion and I knew the fastest way was the freeway, so I drove the goods myself, and I had a good time in Mexico, too,” I finished with a smirk. The girls all started to make that “woo” sound around me and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “You ever go down to Tijuana?” one of them asked me.

  “For work or for pleasure?” I asked. “Although there was a few times when it was both. I once got chased by dogs in Tijuana,” I said shaking my head at the memory. “We had this gang we worked with down there and their leader was this hundred year old crazy man. For some reason, he thought I was stealing from him on a run and he sent his dogs after me. I could hear his men screaming at their boss to stop but the next thing you know there’s ten Dobermans coming out of a shed and racing right for me. I’d never run so fast in my life. I jumped into the truck and took off out of there with these dogs chasing the truck for a half a mile.

  But once I got rid of the dogs, the rest of the gang caught up with me and apologized. They gave me five grand for my trouble, so I took the money and got a nice hotel room right on the beach. I spent five days lying in the sun smoking up and drinking fruity cocktails in the sunshine,” I sighed at the memory. But then I remembered that Paul had been with me. He had driven down to Mexico after I had. We went snorkeling one day, swimming between corals with vibrant blue and red fish swimming around us. It was one of my fondest memories. Even after Paul and I had broken up I could look back on that week fondly. But not anymore. Now any thought of Paul reminded me of his prone form in the dirt outside of the clubhouse. Julian had said he was alive and I trusted him.

  “You ever sneak out with any of that fancy stuff you were hauling?” another asked me.

  I shook my head no. “I didn’t even get it. I would be hauling these bags and they would be worth like five thousand dollars. For some ugly, boxy bag with like crocodile skin. They were so ugly and cheap looking and somehow that made them worth thousands of dollars. Oh man and the shoes? I tried a pair on for fun once and I couldn’t even take one step in them without toppling over. I was sure I was going to snap off my feet at the ankles. They had these tiny little heels and I felt like I was ten feet off the ground. I don’t understand how women can walk in those things. It seems like a punishment to me.”

  “Boots or bust!” one of the old ladies hollered out.

  “Boots or bust!” All the women echoed and we lifted our drinks and then threw them back as one.

  “You know, I always thought I would be a good driver,” one of the ladies said, looking thoughtfully at the ceiling. “But every time I think about it, Chuck tells me I’d be no good at it and that I should remember my place.”

  “Fuck him. You should get your license,” I said. “Then the next time they need a driver you can step up.”

  “It’s not that hard?” the woman asked me. />
  “The nerves are the worst part,” I said. “It’s hard to break the law. It’s even harder to do for hours and hours. You just have to trust yourself and remain calm. You do that and you’ll start to learn the ways of your rig, then you’ll learn how to do tricks and lose tails. It’s a process. No one’s great at anything the first time they do it. You just have to keep at it.”

  “Yeah,” the woman said, giving me a grateful nod.

  “Plus, being a driver is how you get paid!”

  “Here you go, doll,” an older woman said. She had a cigarette hanging from one lip and she put a shot and a beer in front of me. “It’s on me,” she said giving me a wink.

  “Don’t hit on her, Marge,” a lady shouted. “You don’t want Julian to get jealous.”

  Julian rolled his eyes and said, “I’m not worried about it.” The table around us erupted in friendly laughter as Marge sat down next to me.

  “You know, I’m a full member of Los Desperados,” Marge said to me.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “That’s my old lady,” she said, nodding to the woman who had asked me about Tijuana.

  “Nice,” I said. “I didn’t know Los Desperados had female members.”

  “Well you wouldn’t now, would you? You’ve been spending all your time locked away somewhere with Julian. I don’t want you getting the wrong idea about us from him,” she said raising her eyebrows at Julian who shook his head.

  “He’s all work, no play. Me? I’m about ninety percent play.” I laughed and she picked up her shot and I raised mine, as well.

  “Thanks for the drink, Marge,” I said, tossing the shot back. I was starting to feel delightfully tipsy and I was even happier about the fact that Los Desperados had more than one female member. I was the lone biker chick with The Bandits, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t get lonely some time. The fact was, the more time I spent with Los Desperados the more I liked them. I had only been here a few days, but already it was starting to feel comfortable and safe. Had I chosen the wrong gang all those years ago? I hadn’t deliberately picked The Bandits; they had just been the first gang I was introduced to. I wonder what my life would have been like if I had joined Los Desperados as a wayward teen instead.

  The old ladies around me started cracking up in glee and throwing their heads back, and the next thing I knew I was surrounded by free shots and beers and the old ladies were offering me clothes they thought might fit me so I didn’t need to keep wearing the same thing. I looked around the table and saw only happy smiling faces around me.

  “You don’t listen to these limp dicks around here,” an old lady said, as she positioned herself between me and Julian and tossed her arm around my shoulder. “Women can ride just as hard as men. I’ve been telling these jokers that for years, and now you’re our proof. To the ladies!” she cried out, holding her shot glass up.

  “To the ladies!” The table echoed and as one we all downed our shots together. The old lady moved and I felt Julian get closer and put his hand on my knee, grazing it with his fingers before he began to run his hand up and down my leg, going higher with each stroke.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Well, you’ve certainly got them eating out of the palm of your hand,” Julian said as he took a deep swig from his beer.

  I was towing the line between tipsy and drunk, leaning more towards drunk. And being drunk had always made me a little frisky. I reached down and brought my hand up and over his leg, massaging the firm muscles of his thigh. I gave him my sauciest look. I had never been great at flirting, but, somehow, with Julian it didn’t feel like flirting. It felt natural. I didn’t feel like I was trying or worried that he wasn’t going to be into it. It felt like a joke between two old friends, a joke that would inevitably lead to amazing sex. “I thought no one was supposed to know about us?” I asked with a cloying smile and took my hand away from him.

  “We’re under the table, no one can see,” he said. He was trying to keep his expression blank, but I could see the desire he was failing to hide. He kept glancing down my body, checking out my boobs in their low cut top and my legs in my tight jeans. His eyes kept drifting from my eyes down and then lingering where they shouldn’t, he would catch himself and quickly look away. It was cute, and on a guy like Julian it was pretty sexy, as well.

  “So, there aren’t any rules under the table?” I asked him.

  He couldn’t help but smile at me as he said, “There have never been any rules before. I don’t know why we would start now. So why don’t you go ahead and get under there.”

  “Why do I have to be the one to go under the table? You go,” I said to him, arching my eyebrows.

  “Don’t tempt me,” Julian said and there was fire in his eyes and I wanted him so badly at that moment. But Los Desperados members surrounded us and Julian said he wanted to keep everything a secret. I understood why he wanted privacy. I wasn’t a big fan of PDA and I liked the fact that he understood discretion.

  But his hand was still at a dangerous place on my thigh and all of the drinks had gone to my head and I needed to contain myself better. I wanted him. I wanted this entire bar to empty out so it would just be the two of us. If we were alone in here I knew we wouldn’t have to bother with discretion. We could be all over each other. He could lay me back on the table and then...I smiled at all the possibilities.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “The fall of the Roman Republic,” I said.

  “Really?”

  “No, I was thinking of something far more dirty,” I said giving him a mischievous grin.

  Beer kept magically appearing in front of me and I was not the kind of lady who let a beer get warm. I chugged a few sips back and wiped my mouth with Julian watching me all the while.

  “So, Stephen King, huh?” I asked him. “I saw all those books on your bookshelf.”

  “Yeah, I started reading them way too young. I read Cujo the first time when I was eight. Those books used to give me such nightmares when I was little,” he said shaking his head. “But I could not stop reading them. I was addicted. At one point my mom took them away from me, but I knew where she hid all the contraband - under her bed - and one day when she was at work I snuck into her room and pulled Tommyknockers out. I didn’t sleep for a week.”

  Julian smiled as he finished his story and I laughed sweetly. I liked the idea of Julian as a scared little kid sneaking scary books away from his mom. I wondered what he looked like when he was young. He was so muscled and tall that it was hard to imagine him as anything else. I wondered how long it had taken him to learn to ride a bike. I bet he had taken to it like a fish to water.

  “I loved Tommyknockers,” I said. “It was so creepy and weird. But IT has to be the scariest King book.”

  “Yeah, he ruined clowns and turtles with that one.”

  “I’ve never really known a biker to be into reading,” I said.

  “I guess you haven’t met any quality bikers yet,” he said, throwing back his beer.

  “Maybe not,” I said. Who were the bikers I had met? There was Paul, my ex. Several times he had bragged that he had never read an entire book in his life. It was a point of pride with The Bandits, something I never understood. Sometimes one of the boys would bring a paperback on long rides and ribbing from Paul would have been endless. Albert Einstein's coming on this ride with us, guys! Other times it was meanness masquerading his insecurity. You think you’re a smart guy? You think you’re better than us with your book? You don’t get nothing from reading. You’re gonna miss everything if you have your nose stuck in some book the whole ride. Toss it in the trash.

  Like I said, The Bandits had a very macho operation. I remember realizing that it was all grandstanding. That they tore each other down in the hopes that it would build them up. I knew from experience that it didn’t work that way, but bikers can be slow learners. At least The Bandits could be, anyway.

  Julian wasn’t like that, though. He did
n’t lead by bluster or put downs, but by strength and confidence. His men worked hard not because they were afraid of him but because they wanted to impress him. There were no questions with Julian. He said exactly what he wanted to say when he wanted to say it. He didn’t beat around the bush or contradict himself. He always knew what he was doing. His confidence was intoxicating.

  “Does that include your ex?” he looked me right in the eye as he asked me that.

  “Yeah,” I admitted, I looked up at him and watched as he gave the slightest of nods.

  He knew it all along, of course. “What bad quality did he have, drinking, drugs, he hit you?” Julian asked.

  “No, but there were times when it got close. Paul was...” I searched for the best explanation. “Chaotic. There was no predicting him. One day something would make him happy and the next he would fly into a rage. His temper was out of control. Sometimes living with him felt like living with a lion.”