by Hazel Parker
Admittedly, it felt a little too direct. I was used to parrying directness with terrible puns and one-liners. But now, here, Mama was right before me. And while I may have been “the funny one,” I only knew how to be funny because I knew when and how to be serious.
“Oh, hun,” Mama said. “You’re very sweet. But I keep my home and work life separate. It wouldn’t be a good idea right now. But thank you.”
Right now.
I heard a rejection in there, sure. But I also heard a condition to that rejection. It wasn’t that Mama had said we could never work out. It’s that she said we couldn’t work out for right now.
Which meant maybe next week, next month, hell, who knew? I could try again.
And I would try again.
Because all Mama’s rejection had done was strengthen my resolve. I was not going to stand by and let her saying no stop me.
I was going to have her. No matter what it took, no matter how much bullshit I went through, no matter how much we each pretended otherwise in different spots…
She was going to be mine.
Chapter 2: Mama
I didn’t tell Pork the real reason I declined his request.
I liked him. I thought he was handsome. And I knew that beneath the surface of his silly, stupid lines, he had a real heart of gold that would make any woman happy, though it was buried pretty deep.
No, he’d just made the mistake of making his request too specific. He had asked for coffee tomorrow—or, as was the case now, today, Wednesday. I understood it—that was our last night off before we resumed club activities, and the last thing any of us wanted to deal with was a bad date that then had to lead to us hanging out all the time.
But I had plans that, if I’d told him about, he would be hurt.
So, instead, I just declined, knowing I wouldn’t see him tomorrow in any case. I’d only come to the party yesterday evening because I wanted to make Natasha and Cassie feel welcomed by a woman that wasn’t looking to get her pussy filled with motorcycle cock. I usually skipped the parties anyway, given how it was a boy’s paradise.
I joked with Richard that just once, I’d like to see a party where the cast of Thunder From Down Under or the Chippendales showed up. I wanted also all the male strippers from nearby to show up. Then, I’d want the doors shut, forcing the rest of the club to stay in while they watched me revel in six-packs, eight packs, bulging biceps, stiff crotches, and pecs that would make any woman swoon.
Just once, I wanted them to have that experience, if only because I wanted the boys to understand what it was like for me to experience the Tuesday and Wednesday night parties.
But I knew better. Motorcycle clubs were run by men, made for men, and remained running for men. Very occasionally, elsewhere, a woman could become a club member—and I didn’t mean just an old lady or a bunny, but a legit club member—but that was rare, and as far as I was aware, I was the only one in the Southwest that had that privilege. I wasn’t about to act like some bitch and demand that everyone capitulate to my desires.
As funny as it would have been, I accepted that I was “one of the guys” to everyone except Pork.
But, maybe out of desperation, maybe out of sadness, maybe out of a desire to just push everything with him to the side for a bit, I’d done the unthinkable.
I’d downloaded Tinder, started talking to guys and set up a date for tonight.
Frankly, this app bored me. Most men were utterly lame and weak for my tastes; as soon as I pushed back on something, they cowered and agreed with me. It didn’t matter what their political persuasions were—I could have said, for example, that guns were evil and I’d get conservatives to agree, or I’d say guns were the greatest thing ever to become part of America, and the liberals would come around and say yes, please.
It was pathetic and too easy.
The guy who was coming tonight seemed like he might have some potential. Oscar worked in a nightclub, was thirty-five years old, and had handsome, slicked-back hair. Unlike most men, who cowered pathetically when I said something that threatened to disagree with the way they thought, he didn’t mind standing up and suggesting something to the alternative. I still wasn’t that sold on him—Pork, embarrassingly enough for my own self-control, kept coming to mind—but, hey, why not?
It’s a reason not to mix work and pleasure. So as long as you can do that.
I was at the Starbucks at Rancho Drive just a couple miles from The Red Door. I’d arranged for us to meet at seven p.m., but I’d hoped that the man would understand better. I’d hoped he’d realize that “meet at seven” meant “get your ass there ten minutes early to make sure the place is fine.”
Oh, how I’d put too much faith in men to take care of something that simple. I should have known better.
In fact, when the clock hit seven-o-one, I just said fuck it and stood up. I was not going to handle some boy wasting my time. At least at the club, even if I had to deal with a bunch of dumb twenty-somethings getting all aroused around each other, I’d be around friends and people who respected me.
But just before I got to the entrance, Oscar entered.
“Tanya?” he said.
“You’re late.”
“I know, I’m so sorry, traffic was crazy,” he said with a laugh.
With a laugh.
Who the fuck did he think he was?
“I didn’t realize that you were going to let traffic dictate when you arrived,” I said.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just—”
“Well, you’re here; might as well make the most of it.”
Yeah, I could be a little bitchy and a little cold. But too bad for Oscar. That was the cost of doing business with me: understanding and knowing that I could be mean and truthful.
Yes, I knew I’d have better chances in dating if I learned to balance truth with tact. But I also knew that tact would not have kept me alive in the early years as truth had. I didn’t know how to flip that switch, and frankly, I didn’t want to.
“So, what do you do?” Oscar said. “You said you work in the nightlife industry. I work as a promotions manager at XS, one of the hottest clubs in Vegas. Have you heard of it?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Have I heard of the most well-known club in Vegas? Have I, a local for the last two decades, heard about this place? No, I have not, Oscar; tell me about it.”
At this point, I knew Oscar stood no chance of winning my heart. Either he was going to stand up to me and leave, or he was going to continue to cower and try to win me over, which would make me respect him even less. Both seemed reasonably plausible—I wasn’t sure what that said about my opinion of men.
But I knew it wasn’t good, and I didn’t care. Much as I was feeling the pressure to find someone, I knew I was better off being alone and making it work than being with some flimsy, weak piece of shit that couldn’t stand up to me.
“Well, it’s a great place, and I think you know of it well enough,” he said. “What do you do?”
“Oh, the question you meant to ask me at first before going off on a ramble about how awesome you are,” I said with a deliberate eye roll. “I work at The Red Door.”
“The Red Door?” he said, arching an eyebrow. “I’ve never heard of it. And I know—”
“You think you know about everything, but I’m sorry, you don’t. You’re not as cool as you think you are, Oscar. Working at XS might make you hot to girls in the club who don’t know any better, but to me, you’re just another local who bores me to tears.”
Oscar looked at me dumbfounded. His jaw dropped. He was objectively handsome, but right now, I just saw him as weak and cowardly, too afraid to say anything to me. I decided to just stare at him with my arms folded, wondering when he might work up the courage to actually say something to me. The answer, of course, was probably not at all.
“I, I have never heard anyone say that to me,” he said. “Tanya, I can do better. I can—”
Oh, Lord, he’s a plea
ser. He’s not used to being rejected, and so he wants to show me the world or some stupid bullshit like that. Alright, let’s get this over with.
“Oscar, in case you didn’t realize it, your chance to do better ended when you showed up late,” I said. “At this point, I’m just here to see what more you can do to make me shake my head. You’re not getting a second date, and you’re most certainly not getting in my pants. If your idea of a good time is to hang out with someone who won’t give you any attention, then sure, you go right on ahead.”
Wow, I am pretty rude.
But for someone like this? Someone who probably just brags about his job and won’t ever give the time of day to anyone else? I don’t feel that bad about it.
Funny. The more I go on dates like this, the more I appreciate a guy like Pork.
Maybe I do need to wind up dating someone I already know, since everyone I don’t know seems to suck.
“I can make it up to you, I’m sorry,” Oscar said. “I know I was late; it’s a cultural thing, and—”
“Oh, stop,” I said with a laugh. “You have an American accent; I’m not about to buy the fact that you just came from Greece or some other place where time doesn’t matter. Have yourself a nice evening, Oscar, but now, please leave me in peace.”
“This is how you treat all your dates?”
Oh, finally. Where was this guy the whole night?
“This is how I treat the dates who act like bitches,” I said.
“Maybe if you treated us nicely to start, we wouldn’t act this way.”
“Ahh, see, now you’re putting the cart before the horse,” I said. I can’t believe I just used a line that only Pork would say. “You, Oscar, showed up late. Here’s a hint for whichever dumb, out-of-town chick you score next. It’s a gentlemanly thing to show up early, not late. If you had, in fact, we could have had more time together. It’s a gentlemanly thing to, when you ask a lady what she does, to let her say it and not brag about your nightclub. It’s a gentlemanly thing to do not to waste people’s time.”
“And it’s a lady thing to do to treat men politely,” Oscar said, but it was said as he rose, as if he wanted to get the last word in. “You have yourself a good night.”
I actually laughed out loud at that, partially to just piss Oscar off, but somewhat because I knew there was no way he was serious. He didn’t want me to have a good night. I’d just destroyed his self-image of himself as this awesome promotional manager at XS, and now he wanted me to have a good night?
I checked my phone. We’d only lasted about ten minutes. That seemed about right.
I wondered what the hell a date with someone I actually liked would be like. Someone, say, like Pork.
No, that could not and would not happen. If it did, it sure wasn’t going to be tonight. I wasn’t going to the clubhouse until tomorrow for our next meeting, and the prospect of figuring out what we could do with the Degenerate Sinners required much more of my brainpower.
I unlocked my phone to see Richard had just texted me.
“How was the date?”
Oh, how could I answer that question to properly convey just how bad it was? With the truth.
“Over already. He sucked.”
Richard emphasized the text with a reaction. I didn’t know why he did that; he knew full well how much I hated most men. I was pretty sure desperation was the right word for why I was on this app.
Maybe it was just time I stopped denying myself an opportunity at a real man, a man who could handle my life. Maybe it was time I stopped pretending that Pork’s façade of goofy, stupid humor was who he really was.
“Are you going to keep going with Tinder?” Richard wrote back.
Why the fuck would I? I thought to myself as I stood up and left Starbucks. I supposed I could—there were plenty of men who came through the area, especially because of travel, so I would never be without the opportunity to at least get laid. Even that, though, was something I didn’t necessarily need—I had a high sex drive, but I had some really fucking good toys.
In fact, I think the last time I’d had sex was about a year or so prior when we’d invited in a different MC to hang with us for the parties. It was… OK. It certainly wasn’t sex worth asking for seconds on.
So yeah, sex was not a priority.
I got to my bike, looked at Richard’s text, and then looked at all of the guys I was speaking to on Tinder right now. Suffice to say, the vast majority of them I had already pushed away or were so desperate that my efforts to push them away did very little.
Not impressed.
I hovered my finger over the app, pressed down, waited until it started shaking, and then deleted it. Back to having my only options be in the club, I suppose.
I then pulled up Richard’s message and started to type.
“Not in the—”
And then I heard a familiar sound.
The revving of motorcycle engines.
But not our own.
It was the Degenerate Sinners.
Chapter 3: Pork
Where is Mama?
I sat at the party, the same redhead girl from yesterday now on my lap, whispering all sorts of naughty things that she wanted to do to me. They all sounded great, hot, and filthy. They sounded like the kinds of things that would make most men happy. They even had me hard as a rock.
If she kept it up, within the next ten minutes, I was going to take her back to my room here in the club, lock the door, and have her toy with me however she wanted. That was a fucking given.
But if Mama appeared, I’d dump her ass faster than litter out of a speeding car on the highway.
I just couldn’t understand why Mama would have appeared yesterday but not today. Was there something I’d missed entirely? I knew she didn’t always come to these parties, but it was rare for her to come to one party and not the other. She was an all-or-nothing type of gal.
Maybe she just knew Cassie and Natasha were here and wanted to give them some sense of normalcy. Maybe, somehow, I’d missed that some of the burlesque dancers would be here, and she wanted to keep an eye on Dom.
Speaking of…
“Hey, bro!” I shouted to Dom, who was currently surrounded by three girls, all listening to him intently.
I wagged my finger over, not wanting the ladies to know what we were about to discuss. I was changing out of his lifestyle, but that didn’t mean I had to cockblock it. Dom knew immediately why I had waved him over and approached me.
“So, Jenna—”
“Fuck you,” he said, but he said it with a smile that suggested it had at least created an entertaining story, if not one that ended in him getting laid.
“That’s a woman’s job, sir,” I said.
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?” I said, laughing.
“Sometimes, I think we all wonder,” Dom said. “It went fine. Nothing to it.”
That told me that there was everything to it. Dom was almost gross in how much he discussed his hookups and the women he slept with in detail; for him, deflection came because he knew the more detailed he got about things, the less people would want to hear.
So for him to just say “it went fine, nothing to it” might as well have been him saying “this was a huge deal and I want you to ask me more about it.”
“Really?” I said, folding my arms. “Because—”
“Everyone to the back! Saints, come with me!”
Richard’s voice boomed across the entirety of the theatre. The girls hurried back to the safe space: the changing room for the burlesque dancers. We’d experienced this before, but it was upticking now.
The Sinners were on their way.
“The hell’s going on?” Dom said, but he, too, knew what the hell was happening.
“Mama just texted me, said some Sinners are approaching from the north side,” Richard said as we followed him to the meeting room where our guns were stored. “Said maybe a half-dozen. Sounds like the kind of thing where they know w
e’re off tonight.”
“So we have to get on!” I shouted.
No one bothered to call out my terrible joke. They knew it was for me as much as it was for them. Actually, more for me than them.
Richard reached into a hidden closet and grabbed several Army-produced rifles, M4s and M16s alike, handing them to us. I hurried to the roof, using the ladder on the backside of the building, and took my position.
And from there, I breathed.
I took calm breaths.
You will not repeat what happened in Iraq. You have this under control. You have trained for years to do this.
Around me, the world was silent. I couldn’t even hear the distant roar of the Sinners’ bikes. The sky had a dark hue with a hint of color from the neon lights on the Strip, but as far as sound went, I was more likely to hear customers of the Chinese restaurant a block down than I was anything else.
But internally, everything was operating at peak capacity. My heart pounded so hard, I could feel it thudding in my chest. I could hear my own blood pumping through my ears. I swore I could even hear the muscles tensing in my body.
My right index finger hovered inches from the trigger. Though it did not shake and it did not move, in large part thanks to muscle memory, it had too many years of doing this shit, too many bullets fired, too many people killed—too many of the wrong people killed—for it to not have an itch to yank on that trigger.
My left hand gripped the barrel, steady as she went. Again, though the gun did not move and my aim would ultimately prove true, in these few moments before the warfare began, everything inside was going to be a mess.
And then, breaking through my conscious, pushing past the rush of blood near my ears, past the memories of the battlefield in Iraq, past the horrible blue-on-blues that had happened… I heard the faint sound of motorcycles approaching.
From the left.
They were coming from the west side.