Taming Blaze

by Paige, Sabrina

  “We’re going to be on it soon. I’ll send Axe up with a couple of the guys. He’s good at that kind of thing.”

  “Do you know who the kid is?”

  “Some kid. Randolph or something.”

  “Yeah, man. Look him up on the internet. His family is not just some random college kid’s family. It’s like doing a hit on one of the Kennedys.”

  Silence. Then, “Fuck, man.”

  “Yeah. You need to make sure the club knows this shit. I think we might be screwed. The shit with the Furia and the Armenians? Are we sure they really have an alliance?”

  “What do you mean?” Mad Dog was alert now, no question about it.

  “Look, I don’t know if we’re getting fucked over here. Guillermo could be planning to use us to do some shit, then cut us loose when there’s fallout.”

  “You mean use us to do the hit, and then let the shit blowback on the club?” Mad Dog asked. “Makes no sense. Why would he approach us about protection and only mention the hit later?”

  It was true. He couldn’t have been planning on killing Billy until after Dani got home and he realized what the guy had done. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t planning on screwing us with the other jobs from the very beginning. “Look, maybe there’s something off with the protection jobs.”

  “You sound just as paranoid as that Mexican motherfucker,” Mad Dog said.

  “He’s Panamanian. And you need check on this, make sure this is kosher. Maybe the Furia don’t really have an alliance with the Armenians. Has Guillermo made a move to retaliate against them?”

  “No, but he’s smart. He doesn’t want to some high profile shit going on.”

  “Exactly. That’s my point. Think about it, Prez. Why would he have us do a hit like this? It’s the ultimate in high profile. Something’s off with this guy. It’s not right.”

  Silence. “Yeah, I feel you. Thanks man. I’ll take it to the club. We’ll do some research.”

  "Hold off on it," I said. "Sit on it. He's a college kid. He's probably going home for the summer. Shit, he's a Randolph, so he's probably leaving the fucking country for the summer. We wait, the problem goes away. Takes care of itself."

  “You got any more intel on this shit, how much longer we’re out here?”

  “I don’t know. I’m waiting to hear from Guillermo. Keep in touch. A week, a couple of weeks? I'm not sure."

  I tossed and turned on the couch all night, thinking about the hit and Guillermo and the club. And Dani. Before I drifted off, I’d replayed the night at the hotel with her in my head. My hands on her breasts, her laying in the tub, head on my chest. I needed to get her out of my head. Hell, what I really needed was to get laid.

  When she walked out of the bedroom the next morning with her hair all mussed from sleep, wearing a strappy little top and a pair of shorts that barely covered her ass, I groaned inwardly. Was she purposely trying to make things as difficult for me as possible? I sat up on the sofa, shifting uncomfortably, covering my lap with a blanket.

  “Good morning.” She flopped into a chair, arms crossed over her chest. “I heard you leave last night.”

  “I had to get in touch with the club."

  “About what we talked about? Billy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So they know it’s a bad idea."

  “They know. I told the club president.”

  “So they won’t kill Billy then.” I wondered if she was so stuck on this because she still wanted to be with this Billy guy.

  Why did I feel so jealous? I shrugged. “They’ll look at the angles, figure it out. He's a college student like you, anyway. Doesn't he go home for the summer or something?"

  "Home," she said, laughing. "I'm sure he's headed off to Ibiza or whatever other spot has the hottest girls."

  "There you go," Blaze said. "So he's probably gone now anyhow. This Billy guy, was he your boyfriend or something?”

  Dani laughed. “No way. I met him, like, six months ago. I was sitting in my history class, totally hung over, and he sat beside me, tried to chat me up. I think the only reason he kept talking to me was because I didn’t give him the time of day the first time. Anyway, he dates girls whose daddies are senators and whose moms are on the boards of charity foundations. Not girls whose daddies would put your feet in a bucket of concrete and throw you in the Hudson River if you crossed them.”

  “But you wanted to, then.”

  “No! He was just a bit of fun, casual. I mean, we traveled together a couple times. His parents have a private plane,” she said.

  “So it was just casual,” I said. “Was he in the habit of smacking you around?” I was irritated with this conversation, angry at her for being with Billy, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking questions I didn’t want answered.

  “He got weird before,” she said, looking down, fidgeting with her fingers. “We were in St. Barth’s once. He took something and got crazy, grabbed me too hard. It left marks. But it didn’t happen again, and I figured it was just a drug thing. It wasn’t like we were in a relationship, like he was an abusive boyfriend or anything.”

  “Right,” I said. “Except when he choked you.”

  “Yeah, well, I got the fuck out of there, didn’t I? It’s not like I’m going back to him.”

  “You sure about that?” Where did that come from? I had no call even asking that.

  “It’s not really any of your business, is it?” she asked. “But, no, for your information, I won’t be going back to Billy again. Like I said, it was just sex.”

  Just sex. Like Dani and I. She was intentionally trying to hurt me.

  “You do that a lot then, the whole 'just sex' thing?” I asked, immediately regretting my words. Why do I care? It's the same thing I did.

  Dani shrugged. “I went to boarding school with bored rich kids,” she said, as if that explained everything. “You get a bunch of teenagers together, kids with lots of money and fucked up parents, and what do you think happens? They take Adderall, snort coke, and have threesomes. You don’t find boyfriends in boarding school. You have flings. Everyone sleeps with everyone else. It's kind of hard to go from orgies to a vanilla boyfriend-girlfriend relationship in college all of a sudden.”

  “Geez.”

  “What, are you shocked? You’re a biker. It’s not like you’re some kind of fucking saint.”

  I laughed. “That's true. It’s not the sex part. I just can’t picture you at some boarding school with a bunch of rich kids.” That wasn’t entirely the truth. I hated the thought of her with Billy, and even though I knew she and I had been just a casual fling, I was surprised at how it made me feel to hear her talk about “just sex” with someone else.

  “What do you mean?” Dani asked, affecting a British accent. “I’m fucking classy.”

  There it was, a glimpse of the Dani I’d met before, the one from the diner. “Yeah, you sure are.” I said it sarcastically, but she really was in a completely different class than I was.

  “Actually, I really didn’t fit in at boarding school,” she said. “My father has money, but it’s not the same, you know? People like that, the kids from boarding school? They don’t really mix with people like me. My dad cleans up messes for people like them. No matter how much money I had, I’d never be in that class. That’s just a fact of life.” Dani looked up at me, her expression sad. “I didn’t fit in there. I thought I could get away from all that at Stanford. I was wrong, I guess.”

  I felt a pang of empathy for her. It couldn’t have been easy for her, especially after her mother died. She fidgeted in her seat, and it was obvious she had something to say. “That stuff you said last night, the stuff about my father? I know he’s not a good guy. I’m not naive.”

  “I don’t think you’re naive.” I wasn’t sure what I thought of her at this point.

  “I’ve been out of the house since my mother was killed, since I was fourteen. I don’t know what my father is doing anymore, not really. What you said about his smuggli
ng, do you really believe that?”

  I shrugged. “I have no way of knowing for sure.” Why couldn't I bring myself to tell her that I had gotten angry and said it to hurt her?

  “Yet you’re fine working with him.”

  “I didn’t say that. Not at all. But the club voted on it. Whether I like it or not, it’s what the club decided.”

  She didn’t say anything after that.

  The next couple of weeks passed slowly. I always thought of this place as my little time warp. There was never any rush up here. Things always just seemed to drift along and I soaked in every ounce of the freshness of this place as if I could somehow bank it and withdraw it when I was back in the soul-sucking city. I wished I could bring a little of this place with me. I needed it to keep myself alive, to keep my soul alive - what was what was left of my soul anyway.

  I worked the land around the cabin, the brush and the overgrowth getting more and more unruly, not dead like all the grass in the city during summer. Here it was only growing out of control, fueled by the shade of the trees and the relative coolness that went with the elevation. I cleared brush, repaired gutters, immersed myself in the physical labor I loved to do. It was similar to riding my bike- a way to get lost in something else. I’d read about meditation, but it wasn’t my thing. It’s hard to meditate when you’re in a motorcycle clubhouse all the time, but I figured riding and chopping wood were about as close to meditation as I’d ever get.

  We developed this weird relationship, Dani and I. We avoided each other a lot of the time, me working outside and her inside the house or sitting down by the lake reading. We barely said anything to each other, even in passing, like we’d reached this unspoken agreement to just co-exist. She seemed a lot calmer now, and I- shit, I didn’t care if she was Guillermo’s daughter or not, I was dealing with some seriously pent-up frustration. Being around this girl was infuriating, for so many reasons. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought she’d been taunting me the past few days, wearing shorts that progressively got shorter and showed off her long legs, brushing up against me as she passed. Nothing crazy. She wasn’t throwing herself at me or anything. But still, it made me wonder.

  Working the land out here, with Dani nearby, made it easy to forget all the shit going on. It was almost like we were out here on an extended vacation or something, a regular couple spending time together. Not the daughter of a crime boss and the hired gun from the motorcycle club hiding from someone trying to kill her. I needed to remind myself of that fact every time my cock started doing my thinking for me. My dick needed a reminder that Dani’s father was Guillermo Arias, and that anything with her would get us both killed.

  I’d been out here chopping wood for a good thirty minutes, sweating out all my pent up sexual frustration and anger at this whole situation, trying to let go of things I couldn’t control with the club. What I wanted to do was ditch this whole thing - ditch Dani - and go back to the club. It was killing me not to be in the thick of things. I’d called Mad Dog but got nothing. They were working on it.

  The ache in my arms and my back jolted me to the present. It was a good ache, the kind that said I’d had a productive day.

  I gulped down a glass of water at the sink, the sweat pouring off my face and running down to my chest as I soaked in the cool liquid. A cold shower would be good. It was quiet in the house, which meant I finally had the place to myself. I must not have seen Dani run down to the lake. The thought of having a little space, being away from the tension between us, made me happy, and I whistled to myself as I headed back to the back bedroom to hop in the shower.

  I opened the door and Dani shrieked. “What the hell are you doing?” She was standing there buck naked, hair dripping down her shoulders, little rivers of water running down her breasts to her nipples, down her stomach to her...I had to force myself to turn away.

  “Sorry!” I wasn’t sorry. Shit, no. Seeing her naked like that brought back the memory of her in bed and all I could think about was how it would feel to be inside her, to taste her. Damn it. I could feel myself start to get hard, and I tried to focus on something else, anything else to take my mind off her.

  Dani pinched her towel closed around her breasts, but it didn’t help. Her naked body was etched in my brain.

  “What are you doing, coming in here like that?”

  “I thought you were down by the lake. I was just going to use the shower. Didn’t you hear me come into the house?” Stop thinking about her naked.

  “No, I was in the shower.”

  “I mean, I have already seen you naked. I’m just saying.” I gave her my best sheepish grin.

  Dani glared at me. “Go. It’s all yours.”

  I lingered, and she swatted at me. “Get out! And don’t even think about peeping.”

  I was pretty sure I was grinning from ear to ear as I walked into the bathroom.

  And now, here I was, sitting at the creek, teaching her to fish. I didn't know what the hell was getting in to me, but I was starting to feel content here with her. That was a problem.

  “So what’s the deal with all the books in your house?” Dani asked. “Are you a biker philosopher, or what?” I smiled. Her brash attitude was growing on me.

  “One of my foster mothers pushed me to start reading stuff - philosophy, history, things like that.”

  “How old were you when you went into foster care?”

  “Twelve. Mom was a junkie, and after my grandma died and couldn’t help out, things got real bad with her for a while.” Real bad was an understatement, of course. But by ten years old, at least I was an expert at fending for myself.

  “I’m sorry.” She was quiet, focusing on her line in the water even though nothing was biting.

  “Not your fault,” I said. “It was bad with my mom, but foster care was worse for a few years. Creepy ass foster parents, you know? Then I got placed with Althea. She was this older woman. She had thirty-something foster kids before I came along.”

  I don’t know why, but I just kept telling her about myself. “I got sent to her when I was fifteen. I was running with a bad crowd, trying to get jumped by this gang.” I shrugged. “I was trying to get away from my life, you know?”

  Dani nodded, murmured something I didn't quite hear.

  “Anyway, she never lost hope, even when I went to juvie.” I laughed. “Juvie is where I got the Blaze nickname.”

  “What for?”

  “I did some arsons. It’s what got me sent there. It just stuck after that. Then I got out, got hooked up with the MC. Never looked back.”

  “What about Althea?” she asked, and I remembered my first day at Althea's house, when I discovered her library.

  "Oh, you like history, do you?"

  I slammed the book shut, weirdly ashamed of being caught reading. It didn't seem like something a wannabe thug would be doing. "I was just looking."

  "Anything you find interesting in here is yours," Althea said. No one had ever offered me anything before. Everyone else had been all about taking from me, taking anything I had. It made me deeply uncomfortable that she was offering me something without asking for anything in return.

  I watched as she walked to a shelf across the room, traced her finger along it as she looked for a book. "You know," she said. "My children have used this library for years. It's yours now. You're welcome in here anytime. My eyes are getting old now- it's too hard for me to see the print on these books." She peered close, examining the spines on the shelf. "Ah, there it is," she said, handing the volume to me.

  "The Art of War," I said slowly, turning it over in my hands.

  "Sun Tzu," she said. "He was a Chinese military general, oh, ages ago. I think you might find this useful in your present situation."

  I took it, skeptical. What did this old woman know about my present situation?

  I shook off the memory. “She died last year,” I said. “But she gave me stuff to read, told me I could make something of myself. Even after I’d joined the MC, I’d go
to her house, sit at her kitchen table and drink tea from white china.” I laughed, remembering how ridiculous I looked, wearing my leather cut and sipping from a delicate teacup. “We’d talk about Greek and Roman history, Buddhism, anything under the sun. When I got patched, she said it was ironic, the name of the club. Handed me a copy of Dante’s Inferno. I still go out to her grave sometimes with a book, read to her, ask her questions about life. It’s stupid, talking to her and stuff.”

  “No,” Dani said. “I talk to my mom a lot about things, wonder what she would tell me to do.” She looked out at the creek, her expression wistful. “Sometimes I think she’d hate who I've become.”

  “I get that,” I said. “Althea never said it, but I think she disapproved of the club. She had higher expectations for me. One time I asked her why she kept giving me stuff to read, and she said ‘knowledge elevates you, no matter who you are.’ I’m pretty sure she wanted me to get out.”

  “Do you want to get out of the MC?”

  “I couldn’t,” I said. “It’s my home. I don’t mind the muling, that kind of thing. There’s just certain things that go too far, you know? Smuggling stuff is one thing; people are another ballgame. That I want no part of.”

  Dani nodded, and then a look of surprise crossed her face. “Hey! My line’s moving! Did I catch something?”

  “I think you might have.”

  “Holy shit!” She squealed, jumping up and down. “I’ve never caught a fish before!”

  “Well, don’t drop it!” I put my arms around her, hands on hers, trying not to think about how good it felt to hold her. “Here’s how you reel it in. We can cook this guy up for dinner.”

  Taking a pull on a beer, I watched Dani from the other side of the room. She sat reading and sipping on her wine, dark hair falling over her forehead, shielding her eyes, long legs tucked up underneath her. God, she really was beautiful. She looked up at me, eyes hooded, and I felt guilty, like a kid with his hand stuck in the cookie jar.

  “I can see why you like it up here,” she said. The hostility that had colored our earlier conversations was gone. “It’s easy to forget about all the other stuff that’s happening. It’s like a little vacation. Even if I am stuck with you.” She smiled.