Rough Ride

by Archer, Gillian

  “Do you think that’s why she’s coming here? She wants to tell me in person that he didn’t make it?”

  “I think she’s worried about her only daughter and wants to see if you’re okay. Truth be told, she sounded kind of pissed.”

  “Yeah.” I relaxed and let go of Sydney’s shirt. I didn’t even know I’d grabbed it. “That sounds like my mom.”

  “So, tequila?” Sydney asked.

  “Tequila.”

  Chapter 26

  Amber

  My mom showed up somewhere after shot number four. Honestly, I’d kinda lost count by that point. Sydney had joined me on the couch, and after we called for a pizza, she’d grabbed the shot glasses and a bottle of tequila, and we went to town.

  Fifteen minutes and many shots later someone knocked on her door.

  “Pizza!” Sydney shouted as she jumped up from the couch. And promptly tripped over the coffee table.

  I giggled uncontrollably as I grabbed at the toppling bottle of liquor. I caught it and held it aloft in triumph just when Sydney opened the door.

  “Hey, you’re not pizza.”

  “No,” my mom replied as she walked inside. “And I don’t have to guess what the two of you have been doing. I can smell the booze from here.”

  “That’s because your daughter is awful at body shots,” Sydney snorted while she closed the door.

  “Oh my god, Syd. Shut up. My mom is going to think you’re serious.” I covered my mouth as a giggle slipped out. “But we totally should try that. You’ve got the perfect rack for body shots.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that.” Sydney laughed as she bounced down on the couch next to me. “How do you think I made it through my one year of college? Body shots make the campus go ’round.”

  “I think that might’ve been the hangover that spun your campus around.” My mom stood in front of us with her arms cross over her chest. “You mind giving us a few minutes, Sydney? I’d like to talk to my daughter alone.”

  I took in the grim expression on my mom’s face, and my heart fell to my feet. Oh God. Bam. I couldn’t…I don’t know if I could handle what she had to say to me. I grabbed Sydney’s hands before she had a chance to get up. “No, I want her to stay. Just say whatever it is you have to tell me.”

  “Oh, honey. It’s okay.” My mom kneeled in front of me and took my hand in hers. “Bam is fine, I promise. They had to stitch him up, and I think he got a transfusion from that Mafia doctor, but he was alive and sleeping when I left his grandma’s house. I just think that there’s a few things we need to talk about.”

  “I think I need another shot first.” Relief coursed through my veins at the news that Bam was fine. It took only a second for me to take in the tension in my mom’s body. And I knew I needed a little medicinal pain relief before whatever blow came next from my mom.

  “And I think the two of you have had enough.” My mom pushed to her feet and loomed above us, every inch the disapproving mom that I’d remembered from my teenage years. “Syd, would you please take the bottle with you into the other room.”

  It was phrased like a request but sounded more like a command.

  “Sure thing, Miz Bennett. More for me.” Sydney grabbed the tequila off the coffee table and was out of the room before I could come up with an excuse for her to stay.

  “Are you okay, honey?” My mom asked as she took Sydney’s seat on the sofa.

  “Yeah. I just…it was all a little too much, and I needed some time to think.”

  “Tequila will help with that. I know I do my best thinking when I’m blitzed out on booze.” My mom’s sarcasm was biting, and I had to look away due to all the shame oozing out of my pores.

  My mom’s voice grew softer. “If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that there is no answer at the bottom of a bottle. There’s no answer in any part of a liquor bottle.”

  “Well, apparently bikers aren’t the only thing I’m following your footsteps in. Now, according to you, I’m an alcoholic as well. Awesome.”

  “No, smart-ass, I’m not saying that. You’re nothing like me.” My mom bit out the words, and something about the way she said them made me feel very small.

  Or maybe that was my own self-loathing talking because what she said next almost sent me to the floor.

  “You’re so much better than me.” Her voice shook with her words, and I knew she was fighting back tears.

  “Mom.” I sat up and tentatively touched her leg. “Don’t say that. You’re the strongest, bravest woman I know. If it wasn’t for you, that biker could’ve—” I couldn’t even say it. Every time I closed my eyes I saw that gun pointed at me.

  “No, you are. That was…that was time at the range with your dad, and pure dumb luck. But you, you took the blow of your dad dying and kept going. While I was falling apart, you gave up your college career and took a menial job and kept me from choking on my vomit because I was getting drunk off my ass every night. And day. I just…I’m so sorry, honey. I’m so sorry I put you through that. I wish I was strong like you and was able to hold it together for my family.”

  “You’re joking, right? I just ran away while my boyfriend was bleeding out from a freaking gunshot wound. Two gunshot wounds. I’m not strong. I’m weak.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. All the wonderful mellowness from the liquor was gone. Now I just felt like an empty shell. My voice was husky when I whispered, “So fucking weak.”

  “Oh, honey, no. It’s a lot to take in. You just watched two men die, and your guy was down the hall bleeding like a faucet.” My mom reached over and squeezed my leg. “It’s easy for a bitch to say that she’s in—that she’s okay with the life—but it’s another thing entirely to see it and live it. And unfortunately, today you got the live in-person view of how bad it can get.”

  “But he was bleeding when I left, Mom. Who does that?”

  “You only left once you knew he was getting help. If he was in a hospital, you wouldn’t have been able to stay by his side. It’s okay if you need to take a minute or a day to breathe and figure out where your head is. He’s being taken care of. You need to take care of you.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know if I’m cut out for this life, Mom. I don’t know if I can handle everything that happened today. Ruslan and that biker were killed. Bam was shot. Twice. After Dad, I don’t know if I can be with someone like that.”

  “It’s not the life I would ever wish for you, honey. It’s not easy.”

  “No, it’s not.” And despite everything my mom just said, I still didn’t feel right with how I’d left Bam. Guilt weighed heavily on my shoulders. I loved him, but I still left before I knew he was all right. I left before someone made me. Shouldn’t I have been torn from his bedside wailing about how I couldn’t leave him? What kinda biker bitch was I?

  The kind who ran away at the first sign of trouble.

  “No, you didn’t.”

  I flinched as I realized I was so drunk I couldn’t keep my thoughts inside my head.

  “You’re gonna piss me off if you keep talking about yourself that way. I am so proud of you, Amber. The way you kept your cool and helped out. You bandaged Bam’s arm and didn’t fall apart. You stood up to that bastard Russian and let him have it. You didn’t lose your shit after watching two men die. I couldn’t be prouder of you. So please, give yourself a little slack. If you need some space to breathe and think, then take it. Talk things over with your girl. Figure out where your head is. Bam will still be there tomorrow.”

  “I don’t know if I can wait that long to see him, Mom.”

  My mom’s lips twitched with her soft smile. “Then I guess you have your answer right there.”

  I let out a sad laugh. “If only it were that easy.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you need to decide if ho
w he lives his life is a deal breaker for you. After everything you told me about how the two of you got together, I think he might leave the club for you, but do you want him to? Do you want to start your life together with an ultimatum?”

  I shook my head. “The club is his family. I can’t take that away from him.”

  “Then you need to decide if you can handle him being who he is—warts and all. I’m a firm believer that you should never want to change the man you’re with. Remind me to tell you about a few of the guys I dated before your dad. There were some doozies.”

  Doozies compared to my dad? The mind boggled. “Like what?”

  Mom laughed. “That’s a conversation for another time.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.” We smiled at each other. I remembered how she’d wanted to share some of her wild dating stories with me once I’d started dating, and the look of panic in my dad’s eyes before he’d shut that down. Like he was petrified that even hearing about what my mom had done would make me want to do the same. And how my mom had smiled, then mouthed behind his back that she would tell me later. Not that she did. Dad had won that round.

  Which was rare. Usually he gave Mom anything and everything she’d ever wanted.

  “Do you regret it, Mom?”

  “What? The guys I dated before your dad?”

  “No.” I bit my lip. “Choosing Dad. If you knew then what you know now, would you still choose Dad?”

  Tears sheened her eyes, and her lips quirked before she answered huskily. “Yes. I’d go through that pain every day if it meant that I’d have your father. Had your father. He was worth it. You and your brother were worth it. You guys mean everything to me. Your dad most of all. I will love that man until the day I die. So yes, I’d choose him again and again and again.”

  My eyes teared up at her passionate answer. I knew the love my parents had, felt it every day I’d lived at home, could feel it over the phone when I was away at school. That was what I wanted with the man I chose.

  “You just need to decide if Bam is worth the pain.”

  I blinked at my mom. She smiled and patted my leg. “And no one can tell you that but you. Can’t help you there, honey. Sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about, Mom. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I hope this helped.”

  “It did. Thanks. I love you, Mom.”

  “Love you, too, sweetie.” She leaned over and gave me an awkward—given our positions on the couch—but amazing hug.

  A second later we both flinched and jumped apart as someone pounded on the door.

  “Finally!” Sydney shouted as she swayed down the hall. “Pizza!”

  She opened the door and smiled drunkenly at the pizza guy. “I love you. That smells so good.”

  Mom laughed as she got to her feet. “How about I pay for the pizza, girls?”

  Sydney held onto the door as she swung around to smile at my mom. “Miz Bennett, you are the best! I love you!”

  Mom handed some money over to the delivery guy and took the pizza. “And you two need some food in your bellies.” She shut the door with a hip bump. “We can’t make important life and love decisions on empty stomachs.”

  I bit my lip. “I think I’ve already decided.”

  My mom’s smile spread across her face. “Pizza first. Then, if you still want to go after your man, I’m driving.”

  “Deal.”

  Chapter 27

  Bam

  I blinked blearily at the ceiling. It took a second for the room to come into focus. And then confusion set in. I saw my Metallica poster, the trophies from my high school football team lining the top of my old dresser, and piles of old Easyriders magazines I’d liberated from Maverick’s garage forever ago. Wait, I was at my grandma’s house?

  I went to push myself up and fell back against the bed as my arms wouldn’t work. What the hell?

  “Hey champ.” Maverick jumped up from his chair in the corner. I hadn’t noticed him in my first sweep of the room. “How you feeling?”

  “Confused. What the fuck is going on? What am I doing at my grandma’s house?” I looked down at the bandages covering my arms, and I remembered. The call from Neil about the downed tree. The gunshots. Ruslan. Amber.

  Amber!

  “Where’s Amber? Is she okay?” I looked around the room but didn’t see her anywhere. “Where is she?”

  Maverick rubbed at the back his neck and winced. “She’s, uh, she went back to town to get a handle on shit.”

  “A handle on shit? What does that even mean?”

  “She, uh, left.” He sighed heavily. “She left you, Bam. There’s no other way to put it. Shit got hard. You were bleeding like a stuck pig, and she took off. I’m sorry.”

  I blinked as my eyelids got heavy; Maverick sounded like he was talking at the end of a tunnel, his words echoing. She took off. I’m sorry. Bleeding like a stuck pig. Took off. Took off.

  It took a minute for his words to sink in. And when they finally did, I was pissed. “Fuck that.”

  I rolled over and tried to sit up, but found myself tangled in a web of IV tubes and sheets.

  “Whoa, hold on, son. You need to lay back and get some sleep. You keep fighting like that, you’re gonna open up your stitches and shit. And after all that nice doctor did to fix you up.”

  “Fuck that. I’m going down the goddamn hill and getting my girl back.”

  Maverick pushed a wrinkled hand against my chest, keeping me down with a pitiful amount of effort. “Bullshit, son. A girl like that isn’t worth the spit you took to make that sentence. You were bleeding like a son of bitch, needed a fucking transfusion, and that girl drove away like the hounds from hell were on her heels. She didn’t stand by you. She doesn’t deserve you.”

  I shook my head and the room swum around me. I had to lie back against the pillow before I could make my brain work enough to form a goddamn sentence. “I think you’ve got that backward, Mav. I’m the one who doesn’t deserve her, and I’m gonna do everything I fucking can to make sure she doesn’t realize that.”

  “She isn’t worth it, kid. You’ll find one someday that is worth all the bullshit. But it’s not her.”

  “But I love her, Mav.”

  “And sadly, sometimes love isn’t enough.”

  Then a new voice spoke from the doorway. One I knew so well it made me close my eyes in relief.

  “And sometimes love is everything,” Amber said, her voice strong and sure.

  I opened my eyes and drank in the sight of my girl in skintight jeans and a T-shirt.

  And over that, my Property Of vest.

  “Where the hell you been, girl?” Maverick huffed. “This kid has been through the fucking wringer, and you hightail it off for town? What the hell kinda love is that?”

  “Mav, I appreciate you, man, but can we have some privacy?” I asked.

  “No,” Amber cut in. “I’d like to answer him.”

  Maverick grunted and crossed his arms over his chest. I knew that expression well. Last time was when I fucked up as a prospect and fell asleep on watch. What I’d done reflected on him, since he’d been my sponsor. Mav wasn’t impressed with me, and it’d taken a hell of a lot of groveling to make it right with him.

  Amber bit her lip as she took in Maverick’s expression. She turned her eyes to me and spoke. “I did run. I’m sorry, Bam. Maverick. I just freaked out. So much of it was so similar to what happened last year with my dad. And I was scared. I didn’t want to lose you, Bam. I didn’t want what happened to my mom to happen to me. Dad died in her arms, and you almost died in mine. I couldn’t deal.”

  “So, you ran away with your tail between your legs,” Maverick muttered, every inch the disapproving papa. I kinda loved him for it, while at the same time I wanted to wring his neck.

  Amber n
odded. “I did. And I cried the whole way because I’d already lost him. I left him and lost him, but by my own hand this time. It was a chickenshit thing to do, and I’m so sorry, Maverick. I’m so, so sorry, Bam. I’ll do anything and everything to make it up to you. I love you so much.”

  “Nothing to make up. Come here, kitten.” I tried to hold my arms out to her, but they still wouldn’t move. Amber still got my weak gesture, though, and I hardly felt it when she collapsed against my body. I needed to get off these fucking drugs so I could feel my baby in my arms again.

  Over Amber’s shoulder, I saw Maverick shake his head, but he didn’t say anything.

  Amber buried her face in my chest and spoke in a husky whisper. “I’m so, so sorry, Bam. I love you so much. I just was afraid to face my life without you in it. I watched two men die today, and I knew it could so easily be you. But I talked it over with my friend and my mom, and I realized that I’ll take whatever amount of time I have on this earth with you. I’m just so sorry that I freaked out—that I wasn’t here when you woke up. It’s just…damn. I’m so, so sorry, Bam.”

  “I love you, kitten.” I tried to hug her back and cursed the medicine and bandages that kept me from squeezing her. “I’m so fucking glad you found your way back to me before I had to go find you and drag you home. Because you know I would. I’d do anything—whatever it took—to keep you in my life.”

  Maverick cleared his throat. “I’ll just give you kids some privacy. I’ll be down the hall if you need anything, Bam.”

  I rested my chin on Amber’s shoulder. “Thanks. And Mav? Give her a break. Please. You’re the closest thing I’ve got to family, and I’d appreciate it if you and my girl would get along. Love you, man.”

  “Right back at you, son.”

  I could swear I saw a sheen of liquid in his eyes, but I blamed the drugs I was on. Maverick wasn’t the kinda guy to cry. His voice was warm when he addressed Amber.

  “Bye, Amber. Thanks for coming back for my boy.”

  “Always, Mav,” Amber replied, but Maverick had already left, closing the door quietly behind him.