“You can’t stop smiling,” I say.
“Maybe I smile when I’m scared.”
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“And you’re the expert. Apparently.”
“I am the expert,” I say. “When it comes to women, anyway.”
“Women? How many are we talking about?”
I chuckle. “That’d be telling, Red.”
She tilts her head, a cute, inquisitive look on her face, lips pursed, a crinkle in her forehead. “What exactly is it you want from me?” she says.
“Me? You’re the one who waited outside for—”
“Yeah, fine, but you’re the one who followed me down the street.”
“I guess we both want the same thing, then,” I say.
“Yeah? And what’s that?” She raises her eyebrows.
“To get to know each other a little better.”
She giggles, too cute. “Is that what you call it, then?”
There’s a pause. I do just want to fuck her, right? That’s all, yeah?
“My turn,” she says.
“Your turn?”
“Yeah, my turn to guess some stuff about you. It’s only fair.”
I shrug. “Guess away.”
She takes a step back and studies me as though studying a painting. “You’re a member of a motorcycle club, obviously. But it’s more than that. You’re too confident and – no offense – prickish to just be a member of some social motorcycle club. I think you’re a member of a one percent club. That’s what I thought when I first saw you. You’re an outlaw.”
“An outlaw,” I repeat, tasting the word. It’s always sounded strange. Outlaw. Is that what I am? I do my fair share of outlawing, I suppose.
“An outlaw,” she confirms. “Tell me, am I right?”
“Yes, mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“I’m not just a member. I’m the leader.”
She brings her hand to her mouth. “So I’m speaking with the leader of an outlaw motorcycle club?” She lowers her hand, grinning, shocked and thrilled at the same time.
“I guess you are, yeah.”
What are you doing, Maddox? You don’t tell random women who and what you are! What if she works for the police?!
She nods. “I don’t know what to make of you,” she admits.
“How about you take your coffee?” I say. “That might be a start.”
Without discussing it, we walk back down the street to the coffee shop, to my Harley. She takes her coffee but doesn’t say thanks. She’s still a little standoffish, a little wary. I can’t blame her. But she’s brave, too. I just admitted to her – in so many words – that I’m a criminal. And she’s still here. And she’s not a paid whore. And she doesn’t look like one of those wannabe biker chicks. Odd.
“So who are those other fourteen coffees for?” she says. “Your girlfriends?”
I laugh. Is she joking? Or does part of her really believe I’m the sort of man who’d have a harem of women, all of them wanting coffee?
“Not exactly,” I say.
As if on cue, the street growls into life, thirteen bikes roaring into the parking spaces, which line the street in front of the coffee shop. I turn and watch as my men dismount: Markus Green, a lumbering bald-headed man, tougher than leather, grim, simple, kind, large and ogre-looking, and my second-in-command; the man we all just call Irish, with a scar down the left side of his face; Andrew and Simon Fenix, the Loco Brothers, half-Mexican, half-American psychopaths; Stanley, who prefers knives to guns; Isaac, the old man; and the rest, who blend into each other, all grizzled, tattooed, and big scary motherfuckers.
“Oh,” Eden says as the men approach.
***
“Boss! Riding fast like always!” Irish calls, his accent thick.
I hold a finger up to Eden. “Wait here, two secs.”
“Sure,” she mutters, looking over at the men. To her, they must look like a legion of monsters, all of them lined up like an army out of some prison drama. I’m used to it, so I normally don’t think twice. Used to it. Hell, I am it. But seeing Eden’s reaction makes me see it through new eyes. Yeah, they’re scary-looking. Mean-looking. But I wouldn’t have anyone else standing by me when shit goes south.
I take the tray of drinks to Markus, who stands one the sidewalk scratching his bald dome of a head. “Boss.” He nods. “Ready to head out?”
“Yeah, soon. Hand these out, will you?”
I hand the tray of drinks to Markus. He takes them and then turns to the men, who stand in a huddle near their bikes, smoking and laughing grimly. A few of them cast glances at Eden, but when I look at them, they drop their gaze immediately. It’s like we’re animals. They’re sniffing her out, but one look from me, and they know: Taken, go somewhere else.
I go back to Eden, who stands more than a little nervously with a coffee in her hand. Maybe her eyes are sharper than the average person, and she can see outlines of guns beneath their leathers.
“Big day ahead?” she says. Her voice is playful, but I can see the shock in her eyes as she looks over my men. Maybe she has never seen a group of men like these.
“You’re not scared, are you?” I ask.
“Scared?” She nods at Markus. “Of course I am.”
I look at her, suddenly feeling serious, more serious than I normally feel with any other woman. Do I like this woman? A woman I barely know?
“Nobody would touch you with me around,” I say. “And even if I wasn’t, they’ve seen you’re with me, now. They wouldn’t do a thing.”
“You’re their leader?”
I nod. “These men fear me, Eden. And they have good reason to—” I cut short, realizing I’ve gone too far.
“Look,” I say. “You’re welcome to come with me, if you want.”
“Come with you where?”
“On the job.”
“I don’t know if I’d fit in on a job like that,” she mutters. “I’m a student and a programmer.”
A programmer. My chest is pounding. Is that fate shit real?
“Come with me,” I say, and now my voice is more commanding. I hold my hands up to take some of the sting out of it. “I tell you what, Red. I won’t do you any favors, and I won’t act chivalrous. I’ll close doors in your face, and if you fall down, I won’t pick you up. I’ll be the most ungentlemanly man you’ve ever met.” I stop, and lean in, lowering my voice. “Come with me. Take a chance. You came back here for a reason. Maybe it’s ’cause you were bored of the normal life.”
She licks her lips. “Yes,” she says. “Maybe I was.”
Chapter Six
Eden
“So you’ll come?”
Am I crazy? Is something wrong with me?
“I’ll come.”
The sparks that fly between us are undeniable and impossible to ignore, and yet I know I should be working; my game isn’t going to fix itself. I should walk away from him, forget I ever saw him, and work on my game. I should run from here and never look back. And yet when I look into his strong face, that cocky smirk, the last thing I want to do is run. He looks like such a prick! That’s a warning sign, surely? That’s something to push me away? But I move toward him.
He smiles down at me. “You’re making the right choice.”
“Am I?” I ask, genuinely curious. “It doesn’t feel like that.”
He laughs and claps his hands. “Does it feel like the wrong choice?”
I think about it, truly think about it, and realize that yes, it does. It feels like the worst choice I could make. Maddox is standing in front of me, casual and carefree, but his men are huddled together like a band of thieves. Each of them is covered with tattoos and wearing the leather of The Miseryed. One of them hawks and spits onto the road. Further down the sidewalk, I see a man and woman, perhaps husband and wife, step up to the road, look left and right, and cross the street, so they don’t have to walk past the mob.
“Eden?” Maddox says. “Is everything alri
ght?”
I nod shortly, because if I talk, I might say something I regret. Two urges, both equally strong, compel me. One is the urge to run from here and get back to work. It appears in my fingers, causing them to fidget, as though a keyboard is in front of me and it’s time to type. My fingers twitch, and I hang my hands at my sides so that Maddox won’t notice. The other urge, completely unlike me, is to throw myself into this stranger’s arms and feel the muscular warmth of him, lay my head upon his leather and let him wrap his arms around me.
The urges meet somewhere deep in my chest, canceling each other out, so that I just stand statue-still for a minute or so.
He arches an eyebrow. Damn, he looks so bad when he looks at me like that, his kissable lips smirking, his eyes narrowed like a hunter. And then: Stop it, Eden! Stop it now!
“Well?” he says. “Are you coming?”
“Yes,” I sigh.
I take a step forward, and then a thought occurs to me. Holding up my finger, I mutter, “One second.”
I see that big bald man who stands at the front of the group of bikers nod his head and smile, teeth flashing, goofy. The Mexican men shout something in Spanish and then laugh. The scary-looking man with the scar down his face – the one who spoke with an Irish accent – says to another man, “When’re we leavin’ then?”
Maddox turns, faces them all. I can’t see his face because his back to me, but I can imagine it from the way he stands. He stands with his arms at his sides, chest puffed out. “There a problem?” he calls, and the group immediately becomes quiet. The Irish man stares at the ground. The Mexican men shake their heads, one of them biting his lip.
“No problem,” the Irish scarred man mutters.
“Good,” Maddox grunts. “Keep it that way, eh?”
How tough is he that he can make all those men be quiet with a few simple words? How impossibly tough!
I take out my phone and open my text messages. Going to my thread with Nat, I type: Hey, just met a biker in a coffee shop. Going for a ride with him. His name is Maddox Owens. He’s tall and blonde and handsome. If anything happens, call the police—I’ll try and be safe! I send the text and then turn back to Maddox, who stands close to me, so close I can smell his aftershave: musky, manly.
“If we don’t get going, we’re going to be late to the job,” he says.
“Are you sure I can come to a job? Won’t it be dangerous?”
“What? Scared of a little danger?”
“No!” And then I smile, admitting, “A little.”
“I’ll protect you,” he says. “Anyway, you might be surprised by what you see.”
“Surprised good or surprised bad?”
“Both?”
I laugh, can’t help but laugh. He’s so cool, so casual. He doesn’t give a damn. It’s refreshing to find a man who cares so little. Normally men are so pleading, so desperate, so oblivious of themselves. Maddox just smirks at me like he owns me, smirks at me like he owns everything. I think back to the restaurant, how he swaggered into the place, spoke way too loudly and flirted way too obviously. A tingle runs up my spine, a tingle I have no chance of stopping.
“Come on,” he says, and then turns toward the bikes, toward the men. “Let’s get rolling.”
He takes a few paces toward his bike. Last chance… Last chance to turn back and stop this. Last chance to come to your senses.
But then I follow him, and the men heave a collective sigh of relief and start mounting up. A dozen bike stands are kicked away, a dozen engines are prodded to life, growling, and then a dozen sets of tires squeal away from the coffee shop.
Maddox reaches underneath the bike, into the storage area, and hands me a helmet. I put it on. My mouth is suddenly dry, but I ignore it. This is easily the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done. Hands down. No competition.
Then Maddox climbs onto his bike and twists around. “Get on,” he says.
I sit on the back and wrap my hands around his belly. I do this without thinking, as though I have sat on his bike a thousand times before. I’m shocked by how natural it feels. His belly muscles must be rock-hard; I can feel them through his leathers, a hard-packed sheet.
When he kicks away his stand, I know there’s no going back.
Chapter Seven
The wind whips past us, deafening, and talking is impossible. Maybe I could shout, and he’d hear me, but my heart is pumping too frantically in my chest for me to be able to form sentences. If I tried to talk, I’m sure the words would just come out as a garbled mess. So I clench my teeth while I clench my hands on his leather jacket, squeezing his belly. I rest my helmeted head against his back and take long, deep breaths, trying to calm myself.
We zoom through Los Angeles, a phalanx of motorbikes, engines reaching crescendos again and again, and then stopping at traffic lights, only to reach more crescendos. When we stop at the lights, LA-type women sometimes smile at one of the bikers, waving painted-fingers. Some of the bikers catcall and whistle, and the women giggle. When we stop for the fourth time, one of the women looks at me with something like a scowl on her face. I find myself wondering what she’s thinking.
Would she guess I’m a feminist? The wind picks up again, and the woman becomes an ant behind us. Would she guess that I’m making a game to empower women? Would she guess I’m committed to equal rights?
The answer is obvious: No, she would not.
The truth is, though, I like being treated differently because I’m a woman. It’s something I’ll only admit to myself. It goes against everything I should stand for. I should hate the idea. I should find it laughable. Oh, you have breasts and a pussy, good for you! That should be my train of thought. But no, my train of thoughts runs on very different tracks to an entirely contradictory destination. Maddox was right; I rarely let men hold doors open for me. But not because I don’t want them to, but because I feel like I can’t. Now—
How can I figure this out? How can I make sense of it?
I find the town, the pedestrians, and the glare of the LA sun on the visor of the helmet receding around me. I close my eyes and try and tackle this problem with a programmer’s logic. What, exactly, do I want? I want to be appreciated for my mind, it is true, but I also want to be treated special, to have flowers bought for me, to enter a restaurant on the arm of a man and be gasped at by other men. Are these wants too different?
I find myself digging my fingernails harder into Maddox’s jacket.
I want men to want me for my body. I know it’s true. I want men – or at least the right man – to drool over me. I want to be objectified. But I also want to respected. I wonder how many other women hold these two opposing wants. Maybe it’s this: I want a man to approach me for my brains and my ambition, and then focus on my body. I want a man to see past my looks and into my mind, acknowledge it, respect it, and then move onto objectifying me.
You’re making no sense, a voice whispers. It’s like you have two different people inside of you: the slut and the scholar. Which is it, Eden? What do you want to be? Do you want to be the nerdy girl who focuses on her mind and her work, who grows old without a lover and accepts that she’s naught more than her mind? Or do you want to be the sexy, sassy girl who shakes her ass and who all the guys want? The get-up-on-the-table-and-dance girl who everyone loves, the good-time girl. You can’t have both. You can’t be both. Not now, not here.
Why not? I ask.
Because life doesn’t work that way.
I let out a sigh and open my eyes, pushing the thoughts from my mind. I can’t make sense of it. It’s a problem I’ve wrestled with many, many times. And each time I end up frustrated and no closer to a resolution. A feminist or a floozy? That is the question…
If my gender theory professor could see me now, she’d probably say something smart about the duality of the mind, or some such nonsense.
We’re out of town now, driving over eighty miles per hour toward the ocean, the wind whistling in my ears through the helmet, a sound like g
oing fast through a tunnel.
The absurdity of what I have done hits me right in the chest, causing my heartbeat to go from frantic to a series of explosions. I am clutching onto the leader of an outlaw biker gang, hurtling toward the ocean, the outskirts. Suddenly I’m sure that I’m going to witness a brawl between The Miseryed and another gang, like in a movie. Maybe Gangs of New York. I’ll be forced to stand there and watch as two rival gangs pummel each other into the ground. And if The Miseryed loses…
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