by Hazel Parker
“Ethan, please.”
“You’re just a liar. This is BULLSHIT Molly. Has anything real come out of your mouth?”
I pulled on my clothes in a rush, not bothering to see if they were inside out or the right direction.
“Oh, my god. You almost fucking had me. I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been.” He picked his vest up from where he left it hanging on the back of his chair, the emblem weighing heavily in his hands. Looking at it, I could feel my tattoo burning like a scarlet.
“You had me. You almost fucking had me,” he said, talking more to himself than me. “I can’t believe I almost fell for it,” he said shaking his head. “Get out.”
I didn’t want to push him or try to get him to hear me out. I could see he couldn’t take anything more. Fully dressed, I walked to the door and because I’m a glutton for punishment, I turned back to get one last look at him.
He was beautiful. Jeans holding tightly to his behind. His bare chest. Body tight. Muscles flinching, like he was stopping himself from moving. Thick veins bulged from his neck. Jaw clenched.
Rage emanated from him. I could practically see it coming off him in waves. He wasn’t looking at me and I stood at the door, wavering and waiting for something.
He looked up and I saw in his eyes. Those cobalt-blue eyes were stormy and sad and I knew that was what I was waiting for, to see the inevitable destruction I’d caused, and I knew it was time to go.
“I almost fell for you,” I heard him whisper just before I pulled the door shut. His voice sounded more pained than anything.
Chapter 9
Ethan
I don’t know how long I sat on my bed, half naked and confused, but I sat there a long time. Nothing was what I thought it was. My world was upside down. Molly was a Skull. She was a part of the fucking Skulls. The worst gang masquerading as a motorcycle club. They were the worst of the bunch in Reidsville.
The Bandits and The Skulls had a long-standing history. Though we had no major conflicts although we occupied the same areas, it was clear we were not buddies. We had almost been at each other’s throats for years, but in the past six months, it had gotten worse. The Skulls dealt guns, both illegally and legally. The legal ones were small-time arms, but rumors were they were pushing into deeper waters trying to supply heavier and unregistered weight. Now, word on the street was they could supply anything ranging from Glocks to grenade launchers and everything in between – which was bad business for us. They were growing fast and beginning to press on us. A storm was brewing and like an animal, we could feel the tension in the air.
While the Skulls focused on destruction, the Bandits focused on pleasure. We owned a string of bars and started opening strip clubs around the region. Amongst the pleasure of flesh, we pleasured the craving of men and their toys. The garage was the most profitable of our businesses. I held no biases against bikes and fixed crotch rockets or Harleys and anything big or small in between. We did everything from oil changes to custom builds. The garage kept the legal side of our operations afloat while the bar and strip club provided drugs and pussy dealings that weren’t always clean. If you were looking for something a little harder than spirits or a lap dance, The Bandits could provide it.
In all reality, we should have been able to get along since we weren’t direct competition. But no, several small beefs along the way led us to the classic standoff. We didn’t like each other on principle and it seemed like no matter what, we couldn’t lay the beef to rest. Now that most certainly could be forgotten. I still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t some kind of trick to hurt me or elaborate scheme to find out club secrets. I put their president in the hospital and trashed his bike. That was not something easily forgotten or forgiven. If anything, I probably added 100 years of hatred to our bill. Skulls and Bandits weren’t going to be friendly anytime soon.
I was far from pleasure at the moment, which sucked considering how close I was to pleasure before the Earth shattered around me. Molly was on my mind no matter how often I tried to erase her. I couldn’t even lie and say she was getting under my skin. She was already there. I could barely think around her let alone think about her. What the hell had she done to me? If she were anyone else, I would have drank, smoked, and moved on to another one. But instead I was walking around aimless, confused and hurt. I was hurt, which was saying something since I rarely cared about anyone but myself. It was the kind I wanted to dull – to numb. My brain whispered of the high I could get with a little meth. Just enough to knock the edge off the pain.
You know how some people can read for hours? Or how some people can get lost in their craft no matter how long they’ve been doing it? That was how bike engines were for me. Life could be going to hell on a grease pole, but if my hands were in the belly of a bike, things didn’t seem as bad. Fixing a bike was akin to fixing my life. It let me feel like I was in control. It was one of the only things I was good at – aside from getting into trouble.
My hands and feet took me there on autopilot. One minute I was in my bedroom, devastated, and the next I was in the garage, sitting amongst the smoky fumes of an exhaust and tools to fix the problem. All my problems were drowned out with the clank of metal on metal as my wrench worked and the background noise of the radio playing whatever was popular. The tool was in my hand now, twisting from left to right and I lost myself in the motion.
The pain was right there, bubbling just under the surface and feeling a little too real. A little too raw and a little too familiar. Heartbreak. Unsuspecting pain.
*****
I saw the men standing around the living room with somber looks. I saw them drinking to his honor and my mom trying to wipe her tears inconspicuously on the couch, but it still didn’t feel real. It hadn’t felt real when they told us my father was gunned down in a meeting to discuss a neutrality clause to promote peace, or when we stood over the closed black casket with our emblem carved into the smooth marble in white. None of that had felt real. Not seeing my brother stoically throwing a rose petal into the ground, the packed memorial, the stories so many people told about my dad and how he touched their lives. The pats of sympathy people gave me didn’t feel real, and neither did the piles of food people left at our house. It wasn’t real. In my head, I could explain it all away.
I was so good at explaining it all away, but I couldn’t explain away the bike in the garage sitting under a thick layer of dust.
“Always keep your bike clean, Ethan. You can judge a man by the quality of his bike.”
There was dust on it. Thick, though in reality it hadn’t been sitting by itself for many days. It was dirty. Dusty and not shining – very unlike the way the man I knew would have left it.
“Always keep your bike clean.”
Dust was real.
Why wasn’t he keeping it clean? It was like a loud speaker screamed inside of me, “He’s not here.” It was so loud it shook the walls I’d built around me and broke me. I crumbled like the walls around me, hard, to the ground in the garage, into a heap of bones. The coldness of the cement barely registering as the coldness of his death, my loss, settled in.
I didn’t know how long I lay there. No one came by, no one asked what was wrong, and no one cared. When I finally stood, I stood on the brink of something I couldn't describe. The weight of everything seemed to press down on my shoulders and I struggled to take even a single step forward. It was too much. All of it. And somehow, I kept moving. But every step cost me. The darkness grew darker; the pain grew sharper; all of it seemed to only grow in strength and I began to wonder if things could ever get better.
But I never said a word. Sometimes I wondered if that smile, the horribly fake smile, was ever seen through. No one noticed the sad broken look in my eyes. The true depth of my then bluer than blue eyes. There was no light to me. Only ice. But no one noticed.
Everyone though I was doing so well. I hadn’t cried, I wasn’t moping, and according to everyone else, I was acting like my regular self, but I was ba
rely eating and I wasn’t sleeping. I stayed up to the crack of dawn every night until my body couldn’t hold out any longer. I heard my mother crying in her sleep and my brother sneaking out. I had plenty of time to think. Not sleeping helped me realize I was alone. There was no one left to stop me from getting into trouble – no one left to demand better of me. There was nothing left to feel. All I could feel was my brokenness. I wondered if I would ever feel anything else. That question led me to parties, bars, and late night bingeing. It led me to try 100 proof alcohol, weed, and eventually meth.
Only then did I feel for once like I could fly. For the first time in a long time, I was flying instead of sinking to death from a darkness that wouldn’t let go. I didn’t feel so cold. There was heat inside me. I had energy and I could sleep. I could sleep for hours instead of thirty minutes. I had an appetite and could laugh. I could see the light of day and, for a time, I was no longer alone.
But it never lasted. It never does. It eventually went away and the darkness clouded my eyes again, seemingly darker than it was before. The cold felt more biting than I remembered and I was drowning under something I couldn’t name. I needed more. I couldn’t bear the darkness and I drowned in all that meth could provide. One frat party I snuck into gave me powder, and somehow that powder held power over me.
*****
For just a moment, the same coldness blew threats on my heart and I thought about how wonderful it felt to ignore it before. When I was sixteen, it seemed so magical and simple. But now I was a man. Thirty-three years old and in control. I couldn’t and wouldn’t go back. I stood, and without thinking, threw my wrench across the room. It left my hands, hitting the wall and the ground with enough noise to be satisfying.
I wanted to hate her. I hated that bitch so much. Why did she make me feel like that? How did I let her get so close? Why couldn’t I stop thinking about her? I didn’t want to miss her.
Was this love? If this is what love felt like, I didn’t want anything to do with it.
Chapter 10
Molly
I hadn’t kept my word and I wanted to do that, so after the horror of being kicked out of Ethan’s apartment, I drove to see my dad.
Paulie met me out front instead of the guard that was there before.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he said just before he opened my door. When he saw my face, he instantly knew I was upset. He bent down and grabbed my hand. “Hey, you okay?”
I really didn’t want to talk about it, but there was something about a person genuinely asking if you’re okay, something about someone knowing you aren’t okay and reaching out to help you feel better. I could feel the tears fighting to pour out. My bottom lip trembled but I shook my head no.
“No. I don’t need to talk.”
“You don’t need to or you don’t want to?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want.”
“It does, love,” he said, leaning forward to caress my cheek
It felt too familiar, too much like easy temptation, and wrong. Just wrong. His hand was warm and smooth, with the right amount of callouses, and completely wrong. Just wrong. That was not the hand I wanted to have touch me, caress me, comfort me, and while I was thinking, he was leaning closer. I came to see him inches from my face, from my lips, and I recoiled in disgust, jumping back.
“What’s wrong, Mols?”
I thought to say I don’t want this, but I didn’t want to start a fight, so instead I said, “I need to see my father,” trying to exit the car and push past the hulk of a man.
“So,” he said, pushing me back to be seated. “He’ll still be there. We need to talk.”
I sighed deeply and rubbed the headache I was beginning to feel from my eyebrows.
“What about, Paul Mathers?”
“Wow, Molly Karin. We dropping governments? It must be serious.”
“It must be,” I said with attitude. “You keeping me here.”
He sighed and rubbed the scruff on his face. “Look, Mols. I just… I mean… I think—”
“Cat got your tongue?” I said, attempting to lighten the mood.
“Something like that,” he said, chuckling and shaking his head.
“Well nothing you have to say should be that hard. So try again.”
“I just think we should talk. Last time we talked, it didn’t go so well and I just, I don’t know, Molly. I didn’t like how we ended. I want us to be the way we were. You know?”
Not really. No, I didn’t know. How could we be like we were? What was there to salvage? Did he really want us to be what we were when we were teenagers and somehow convinced we could have a happy life together? When we were too naïve to understand that love and war couldn’t go together.
“Paulie, we’re not those people anymore,” I said, touching his hand and trying to let him down as gently as possible. “I don’t like how we ended either. So let’s start over. I changed my life – for the better. And I’m happy. You’re happy and I’m glad you’re happy. Can’t that be good enough?” I said, smiling.
He smiled a weak smile and patted my hand. “For now.” A small beat of silence passed between us before he stood from his crouch and helped me from my car. “Let’s go see your old man.”
“Yeah, let’s,” I said, sliding my arm into his.
My dad looked much better. His skin was no longer pigmented with so many bruises. He filled out his jacket and he looked every bit the king he thought he was – the king of the Skulls. What did that make him? The Grim Reaper? I couldn’t know and in all the years I’d known him and been estranged from him, he’d always carried himself that way, even when there was only two people to lord over.
He sat at the table with a can of beer, slouching in his chair.
“Are you supposed to be drinking, dad?” He looked better, but the truth was I didn’t know about his internal injuries. More than likely, he shouldn’t be drinking.
“Maybe,” he said, taking an apologetic sip.
“What did your doctor say?”
“What she doesn’t know won’t kill her, will it?” he said, raising his can as if giving a toast. “Now, how’s my daughter?” he asked. He sounded so sincere. All that was missing was him opening his arms for a hug. How I was feeling, I might have taken the hug. That was how vulnerable I was. I would have gone against every instinct from childhood and survival and hugged. Every daughter wanted comfort from their dad, right?
I decided to go for something less emotional, something more like what we were: distant relatives. “Not too hot, dad.”
“Want to talk about it?” he asked, sipping his can of beer.
“No.”
“Why?”
“It’s kind of hard to explain.”
“I understand. Want something to drink?”
“Yeah,” I said as he nodded to Paulie.
He pulled a can of grape Fanta from the refrigerator. I smiled a half smile and took the cool can from his hands.
“I guess not much has changed,” he said, smiling as I ticked back the metal can top and heard the hiss of carbonation.
“So, got anything to tell me?” dad said smugly, sipping his beer.
“About what?” I said, dreading his answer.
“About Ethan, of course.” He smiled, and it would have been alarming if I didn’t know he was like a snake. He would strike when it looked like he was the most disarming.
I opened my mouth and closed it. Did I really want to know?
“You’ve been watching me?”
“You’ve been watching me?” he said in a squeaky voice, mocking me before laughing. “Come on, baby girl. You went to school. You’ve got to have some brains in that head. What do you think?” His face turned serious and I knew that he was no longer into playing with my emotions. “Yes! We’ve been watching you. Duh. We never stopped. You’re my daughter. You think I don’t know where my child is and who and what she’s doing?” He smiled sadistically at his double entendre. “I know who’s been sharing your bed,
and since you’ve finally done right by us and come home, you can tell me anything he’s shared.”
“What?” I asked, horrified that he thought I would ever be his spy.
“You’ve been sleeping with the enemy, Molly,” he said like he was speaking to a child. “Obviously you’ve seen the error of your ways or the inevitable happened and you realized that you two could never work. I don’t care which one it was, but since you’ve come to your senses, the least you could do is tell us anything he might have said.”
“What makes you think I would do that?” I asked, disturbed by his perspective of what had just happened. “I couldn’t do that.”
“Yes. You could. You still haven’t learned anything, Molly girl,” he said. If anyone else had said it, it might have sounded endearing. “Remember what I told you? Family is about loyalty. That’s what makes the Skulls stronger, bigger, and better than that little crew pretending to be worthy of the word Bandits. Loyalty,” he said, pronouncing every syllable of the word. “That’s what makes me think you’ll tell me. Do you still know nothing of the word?”
The tears I tried to keep in started leaking from my eyes as he continued. He looked on with a bored and uninterested stare. “It’s been ten years and you’re still that same, little girl. I thought by now you would have learned.”
“I’m not telling you anything Ethan said to me. He didn’t tell me a single thing about his crew, but even if he had, I wouldn’t tell you anything.”
“What about loyalty?” he said, slamming his hands on the table and standing.
“What about it? You don’t know anything about loyalty. You only know how to look out for yourself. I’m standing here with a broken heart and it would have been nice to have your support. Instead you tell me I’m nothing if I don’t give you what you want?” I asked, coming to the realization I should have known from the beginning. “You still haven’t changed. You cheated on mom. You pushed me to do that job even though you knew I wasn’t ready!”