by Vivian Lux
I splashed some water in my face, and peered at myself in the warped bathroom mirror. I didn't know what I was still doing here. I should have gone home ages ago, and yet I had stayed like I had a place here. I felt light inside, when I should have felt nothing but guilt over my missed exam. I knew what hell waited for me when I did get home, and it suddenly felt stupid and trivial.
A million rebellions whirled in my brain as I stepped into the achingly brilliant sunshine. A million ways to redefine myself, each more far fetched than the last. But nothing was so rebellious as the piece of paper I had left near the sink. The one with my name and phone number scrawled across.
Chapter 20
Lexi
My mother had sounded like she wanted to reach through the phone and finish the work the imaginary murderers hadn't accomplished. I only was able to get her off the phone by telling her I was at my professor's door.
"Miss Delaney." I was surprised Professor Schwartz knew my name, until I remembered that up until two days ago, I was in the front row of every class. "We missed you this morning."
My mother's screaming disappointment mixed with the pounding in my head. The bright afternoon light that streamed in to his dusty office seared my eyeballs.
So it was very easy to start crying.
"Professor Schwartz, I know I missed the exam."
He immediately looked alarmed, reaching quickly for a box of tissues on his desk and handing it to me. I blew my nose noisily and he looked away in obvious discomfort.
"Last night, I went to a celebration, just a small get-together to celebrate the end of exams." That was what it was supposed to have been, so I didn't have to stumble over the lie. "I was walking back to my car when, when, these guys, they um...."
Professor Schwartz looked immediately horrified. "Miss Delaney, are you okay? Did you call the police?"
I held up my hand. My tears were falling for real now, the realization of what Crash had saved me from starting to set in. "No, my, uh, friend. He scared them off. But I was all shaken up so I uh, forgot to set my alarm." I rolled up the leg of my jeans and showed him the scrape from the ice. "This is where I slipped when one of them grabbed me."
The professor's thick eyebrows knitted into a knot on his forehead as he handed me another tissue. I took a deep breath. "May I please take the exam now?"
"Now, Miss Delaney? Don't you need some time to collect yourself?"
If I did I would loose my nerve. "No, Professor, please. I need to put this behind me."
He nodded in grim understanding and reached into his desk drawer. "Do you have a pen?"
I settled into the chair by the window and began scratching away. The sun was shining brilliantly, and I could hear the drip drip of the melting icicles on the roof above my head. The antsiness seemed to jumpstart my brain and I was surprised about the insights I suddenly had about the ramifications of Manifest Destiny. The melting snow was retreating quickly from the pavement outside and in the two hours I spent in my professor's office, puddles were starting to form.
I handed him my exam with a flourish, more confident of my success than I ever had been. "Thank you, Professor," I smiled.
"You're a remarkable young woman, Miss Delaney," he said solemnly.
I ducked my head at the undeserved compliment and walked through the hallway and through the double doors out onto the concourse and breathed a sigh of relief. I got away with it. I can't believe I got away with it.
The jubilation hit me just as the sunshine struck me in the face. It was weirdly warm outside. I eagerly shed my snow jacket and felt the cool wind mix with the warm sunshine and the steady drip drip of everything melting around me.
Then I felt my phone vibrate. An incoming text.
"Hey Lexi. It's Crash. What are you doing?"
I practically jumped out of my skin. "Hey! Just finished an exam."
"Cool."
"Not really, but yeah!"
"You free now?"
"For the rest of the afternoon." I sure as shit wasn't about to go home.
"Wanna go for a ride?"
I was about to reply when my phone buzzed again. "Where are you???? You missed the exam!!!! Are you alive??????"
Ingrid. I tapped furiously, not wanting to keep Crash waiting. "I'm alive. In the concourse."
"Be right there."
I impatiently swiped her message aside and returned to Crash's message. I stared at it. A ride? Like, on a motorcycle? Sure it was weirdly warm, but it was still December.
"Sure!" I typed back. What the hell was I doing?
My phone buzzed immediately. "Where are you?"
"17th and Spring Garden," I typed. "CCP."
"Be right there."
I staggered over to one of the benches and plopped myself down, not caring that my butt was instantly soaked. Two days ago I was trapped in my parents house, bored and restless. Now I suddenly had a biker interested in me.
I was still shaking my head when Ingrid came rushing over in a flurry of handbags and accessories. "You're alive!" she shouted across the concourse.
I blinked, realizing my head was still pretty tender. "Barely."
She fluttered over to me and stared. "You look like shit, Delaney. Are those the same clothes as last night?" Her eyes widened. She dropped everything she was carrying and clapped her hands over her mouth. "Oh my god, where did you sleep last night? Who was it?"
I held up my hand. "Don't freak out."
Her eyes sparkled with vicious realization and she laughed. "So after all that shit you yelled at me about not being a slut...."
"Stop..."
"You went and slept with him anyway! Ha!" she shrieked in triumph.
"Ingrid. I'm sorry I yelled at you. I was freaked out. But I didn't sleep with him." I paused and let a slow grin spread across my face. "I slept over though."
Her shriek echoed off every surrounding building. "What?!?!?"
My phone buzzed and I looked down, knowing that the wide grin on my face was only driving her madder. "Can you walk with me?"
"Yes!" She grabbed her ridiculously number of bags and stared at me. "Are you going to tell me what happened after you left or am I going to have to beat you with this Coach bag?"
I cocked my head. "Nah, too small. What's the brand of that one?"
She looked at the one I pointed to. "The Birkin? Okay, stop, before we go any further, I need you to explain how you don't recognize one of the most iconic bags in design history."
I held up my purse. "Got it at Target."
Her eyes rolled back so far I only saw white. "I'd say you were hopeless except for the fact that you clearly had a far more interesting night than I did. I was in bed at midnight. After Crash left, that party just...died."
We reached the corner of 17th and I checked my phone again. Just as I looked down, I heard it.
"Is that...?" Ingrid squinted in the bright sunshine, trying to make out the approaching figure. I heard the loud rumble of the motorcycle and a thrill coursed through my body and made my toes curl inside my boots.
Crash pulled up along the sidewalk, slipping his motorcycle expertly into a cleared space. The gleaming chrome of his Harley glinted, making it look like he was twinkling. But there was nothing twinkling about the black, patch covered leather he was wearing. The deep black sunglasses obscured the good humor in his eyes and I was momentarily frightened.
Then he took them off and his blue eyes were crinkled and his mouth was stretched wide in an eager and slightly abashed grin. "Hey Lexi. Hey...uh...I never got your name."
"Ingrid." She darted forward with her hand outstretched, less in an attempt to shake his hand and more to touch him. "I've heard a lot about you."
"Guess I'm pretty fucked then," he grinned, watching as her hand fluttered along his arm.
The little mother in me just couldn't help but rear her nagging head. "You aren't wearing a helmet?" was the first dumb question that popped into my brain. I could have killed myself for ruining the moment.
>
Crash turned back to me and leaned back in his seat. "The devil had his chance to take me a while back and he didn't," he answered amiably. "Guess I figure he doesn't want me, so I'm in the clear."
I felt a tightness in my stomach. "Your, uh, crash?"
"Came by the name honestly."
I wanted to know more, but didn't know how to ask. Instead I stepped towards him. Wondering where I was finding this boldness, I touched the handlebars. "I've never been on a motorcycle before."
His blue eyes twinkled. "I figured that. High time you tried it, don't you think?"
Ingrid gasped audibly.
I stammered a moment. "There is no helmet," I protested.
"Don't you trust me?"
I hedged. He had saved me last night. I had been drunk to the point of helplessness and he had been nothing but a gentleman, no matter how menacing he looked now. "Sure, I trust you," I smiled, "it's everyone else I'm worried about."
He snorted. "Shut up and get on the back."
What could I do? Ingrid was watching, and Crash was waiting expectantly. Fear beat loudly in my ears as I swung my leg around the back of the seat and settled myself across the metal death wish. I felt unstable, like a kid just learning to ride a bike and when he shifted, I squawked slightly and flung myself forward, pressing my breasts into his back and wrapping my arms tightly around his waist.
"There we go." I could hear the lascivious grin in his voice, and it made me blush almost as much as the feel of the bike seat pressing between my legs did.
He kicked the bike to life, and I blushed harder to feel those vibrations travel through me. I squirmed a little, trying to find some position that wouldn't send tingles directly through my body. As we surged forward, I gave an involuntary scream. The feeling of speed, without metal walls between my surroundings, and me, made me gasp. Even though in my head I knew we were only going about five miles an hour, it felt like we were hurtling at the speed of light. The slight balm in the air was gone, and my face was met with the full chill of winter, blowing back my hair and immediately chapping my lips. "Fuck!" I shouted involuntarily, "it's cold!"
"You'll get used to it," he shouted back over his shoulder, and nudged his speed a little higher swinging into the lane. I felt, rather than saw, Ingrid stare at our backs. I was too afraid to let go of him and wave goodbye.
I squeaked again and clutched him even tighter, but deep down inside of myself a small thrill began to grow. It was nice to have an excuse to hold him so close. His body was warm and hard underneath the buttery soft smell of his leathers. I felt that same attraction, and repulsion that I felt last night magnified tenfold. My body was responding to the bike as much as it was responding to him.
It was magic.
Chapter 21
Case
Case stood up from behind the desk and stretched slightly. Just like Bruce had promised, the pill business was insanely lucrative. A week's worth of work had landed him a pretty solid little network of distributors. He found he preferred working with college girls; little innocent fresh-faced businesswomen, desperate for money to keep funding the lives they were used to at home. With the holidays arriving, he was having a field day with college-aged customers needing to score before they were sentenced to a month with their families, and his new little network of go-getters was working out nicely. Most of them were fiercely in awe of the huge bearded blond biker and scrambled to get him the best price they could.
And a few of them had let him fuck them. That was a bonus.
It was a good distraction, after all. The good weather had lasted one single day. Just one freakishly warm day, enough to cause rampant flooding through the area, and now they were back to the flat, gray skies and freezing temperatures of a normal December. Once again he found himself pacing the clubhouse, waiting for the weather to break.
Winter sucked.
But at least today was going to be interesting. J. was off with Emmy, helping her younger brother move out of the awful house they grew up in, and getting him settled in Philadelphia.
And then later, that little brother was coming by to start the dirty, thankless job of prospecting for the Sons of Steel.
"Been a while since we had a new face around here," Case noted carefully to Teach, as the older man stepped into the office. Bringing new people into his inner circle always made Case nervous.
"Go big or go the fuck home, huh?" Teach replied, leafing through a pile of orders for the shop. He was being deliberately noncommittal. They all knew Emmy's brother Andy, and knew he was a good kid. He had fought hard and well that night when the Sons of Steel had taken on Emmy's rich asshole of a fiancé. He had jumped in to defend his sister without any fear for his own safety. That was the kind of loyalty to the club looked for.
"But he's so fucking young!" Case couldn't help but remark.
"You started even younger."
Case laughed. "I was just fixing your bikes. You guys may be a bunch of dumb fucks, but you knew better than to let a fourteen-year-old kid into club business."
Teach gave a small laugh that turned into a coughing fit. "Andy is eighteen, not fourteen," he finally managed to get out.
That coughing again. Case pressed his lips together, wanting to ask about it, but Teach deliberately sipped a bottle of water and looked away. Clearly there was nothing to be said.
Eighteen years old, he thought instead. Hunter was only two years younger than that. That meant in two years, Hunter would be old enough to prospect for the club.
He opened his mouth, but before he had a chance to continue, they both heard the noise of a truck with the bad muffler pull into their lot.
"Sounds like he's here…" Teach rasped. He turned and headed out of the office and through the rolltop doors of the garage to greet the new arrivals.
Case hung back slightly, watching from the doorway as the small black man clasped the forearm of the tall, skinny white kid. "We're gonna need to bulk that fucker up," Case muttered to himself.
J. was hanging back with Emmy, the two of them silently watching with their hands clasped. Case couldn't help but feel a slight pang of jealousy. Emmy's family was shit, but she still had her brother right here.
It wasn't fair.
He pushed those thoughts away quickly as Teach brought Andy into the garage. The kid was trying his hardest to look cool and composed, but Case could see his excitement about being around all of the bikes and grinned. He remembered feeling the exact same way. It was enough to spur him forward.
"We meet again!" Case held out his hand.
Andy grasped it eagerly. He was tall, but Case was taller and the kid had to crane his neck to be able to look him in the eye. "Case, right?" he grinned widely. "Nice to see you without a bunch of blood and mud on your face."
Case laugh and decided he liked him immediately. "I'm sorry you can't see me at my best right now," he grinned and Andy laughed again.
"I like a good fight as much of anybody, but that situation was a bit fucked."
"Just a bit," Case nodded. He clapped Andy on the shoulder. "You sure about this? You actually want to join this group of raggedy assholes?"
Andy laughed nervously, and then his face went serious. "Pretty much." He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down his skinny neck. "You saw it yourself. My own family sucks. Since I met you guys, I've been counting down the days until my eighteenth birthday, when I could get the fuck out of there and they couldn't do anything about bringing me back. The only normal family member I have is Em, and she likes you guys. So I figure that's good enough for me."
The resigned heartbreak in his voice sounded all-too-familiar. "It's a dirty, thankless job. You know that, right?"
"I'm good at putting up with bad situations," Andy smiled with a slow grin.
"And it's open-ended too. Could take thirty days, could take three years, all depends on when we think you're ready."
Andy set down his bedroll and spread his hands. "So long as I get to play with your scooters,
I'll be your slave forever."
"You may live to regret saying that," Case laughed as Teach walked up to the two of them.
"Basically it boils down to this. I'm young. I'm the right demographic for your… business. I know how to ride and I can take a punch."
"Well said," Teach nodded. "Case, can you please show him the bunkhouse?"
Case pointed to the plywood walls of the makeshift bunkhouse. "Ever hung drywall before?" he asked Andy.
"Um..."
Case grinned wickedly. "I think I just found the first of your prospecting duties. These are way too thin for all the fucking that goes on around here. I'm tired of hearing your sister and J. go at it."
Andy looked repulsed.
"Yeah that's pretty much my reaction, too. You're going to be building some actual fucking walls for us. How's that sound?"
"Sounds… great!"
"Good answer. Go grab yourself a cot."
Chapter 22
Lexi
"It's just so, anticlimactic, you know?" Ingrid was picking her way along the slippery pavement, still stubbornly clinging to her impractical heels. "That was my last final, where are the balloons? Where's the party? It's just...over." She tossed her hair. "And now I get to go back to my apartment and pack to go home. Woo."
I grinned. Everything was making me grin this week. I was still coming down off of the incredible high of riding with Crash on that perfect day. "We should celebrate. You and I."
"You're done too?"
I rolled my eyes. "I was done this morning. Way to pay attention."
"I'm sorry!" Her blue eyes were so wide with shock I had to laugh again. "I was so wrapped up in that bullshit Bio final that I totally forgot! Yes, celebrate. Come back to my apartment with me, I have something new to try."
The way she said that made my ears prick up. "New?"