Lock and Key

by Cat Porter

  “You get me, little sister?” he whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah what, peanut?”

  I swallowed hard. “I got you. Just, um, tell me what you want me to tell her to do or whatever you just said.”

  His ringed hand began to stroke my thigh; his thumb grazed my crotch. I glanced down. One of his rings was made of a .44 caliber chamber.

  “You still got that piss-ant boyfriend, peanut?” His voice was rough and gravelly again.

  I shook my head. How the hell did he know about Trey Owens?

  The whole thing was a whole lot of nothing that lasted maybe three weeks. In fact, the day before I had ended it with Trey because all he wanted to do was get in my pants after the first date, which I originally thought had gone pretty nicely. But after that there were no more movies or pizza dinners.

  He frequently dropped by Pete’s with his friends and insisted on freebies, or he’d come to my house unannounced to watch ball games with bagged popcorn and cheap beer. He’d try to get down my jeans and up my shirt during the commercials. My disinterest irritated him. His irritation annoyed me. The big attraction was over real quick.

  Dig’s warm fingertips skimmed my back under my tight Pete’s t-shirt and lingered at my bra strap. His light touch suddenly transformed into a massage radiating waves of heat through me.

  “I’ll come pick you up tomorrow, we’ll have breakfast, and I’ll lay it all out for you. Say around ten? Sound good?” His lips brushed my ear, and I nodded, mesmerized by what his hot hand was doing to my flesh. His hardness poked at my rear. I could barely breathe at this point.

  After all, I was a virgin.

  My sister had repeatedly tried to get me to “lose it,” as she called it. But I had no interest in “losing it,” “giving it up” or “getting rid of it.” I wanted my first time to be a memorable, special moment, not some sort of sloppiness in the back of a car or a truck, or a quickie on the sofa during commercials for Monday Night Football.

  I didn’t want to regret it after, nor did I want to laugh about it years later, like Ruby did. I wanted to be thrilled and gratified by the memory. My sister had smirked at what she considered to be my oddball corniness, but she admired my resolve and romanticism, nevertheless. I didn’t have to be in love, I argued. I just wanted there to be something big and real between me and the guy when it happened. And he had to be a good guy who I was really attracted to and who really wanted me, too, not just any good looking dick on legs.

  Like now, perched on Dig’s lap, trapped in his arms, his lips and hands scorching my skin. This was breathlessly big and thrillingly real, wasn’t it?

  “You want to let my star waitress get back to work, Dig? I got a business to run,” Pete’s grizzly voice sliced between us. Dig’s hands dropped from my body and relaxed at his sides.

  “Later, peanut.” He grinned and winked at me. My pulse skipped a beat, and I scooted off his lap and grabbed my tray.

  In a few months I would become Dig’s Old Lady.

  “Grace, wake up.”

  My eyes adjusted to the harsh, bright lighting.

  “Ruby’s back in her room,” said Alex. “She’s waiting for you.”

  I popped out of the hard chair, and my hand immediately went to my stiff neck and aching shoulders. An elderly man swished a large mop across the floor, and the heavy smell of pine cleaner pierced my nostrils. I let out a cough as my hands rubbed down the legs of my jeans. I slid my bag on my shoulder and followed Alex into my sister’s room.

  “Grace!” Ruby said, her arms outstretched. Her beautiful blonde hair had long since fallen out and now her head was wrapped in a teal blue scarf. Her skin was pale, very unlike her usual golden hue. She looked thinner, yet bloated at the same time. I ran to her open arms. We rocked each other back and forth.

  She laughed. “Shit, you look just a little better than me, what the hell?”

  “I have been driving for long stretches to get here. I couldn’t get any sleep last night at this crappy motel, so I just decided to get back in the car and come straight here.”

  Ruby’s tired eyes slid to Alex, then back to me.

  “I may have had a whiskey from the minibar. Or two.” I shrugged at her and sat at the edge of her bed.

  Ruby let out a small laugh. “Oh, that’s why you’re having your blood taken tomorrow?”

  “Yep,” I said. “They need a clean sample, you know.”

  “Thanks, honey. It means a lot to me,” she said.

  I frowned at Alex. “Did she just say thank you?” I turned my frown on Ruby. “I’m your sister, I’m your best shot. It’s a no-brainer.”

  Ruby nodded stiffly, and her eyes welled up with tears. My stomach clenched. Ruby never was a crier. I had always been Miss Sensitive at our house.

  “Rube?” I crushed her to my chest once more.

  “Honey, it’s okay.” Alex rubbed her arm.

  “It’s so good to see you. It’s been such a long time,” Ruby said.

  “Meeting me the past three Christmases in Denver, Dallas and Seattle doesn’t count?”

  “I mean seeing you here in South Dakota,” she said. “Sorry. It’s just frustrating. I finally go and get my shit together and now this. For the first time in my life there’s nothing I can do about it. You know me. I don’t do helpless. I like plans of attack.”

  “You mean no plans and lots of attack,” I said.

  Alex chuckled “You got that right,” he said. He leaned over and planted a kiss on Ruby’s cheek.

  “Whatever.” She frowned at us. “All I can do is sit back and wait for test results and listen to the doctor’s drone of data. It makes me cranky. Deal with it, you two.” Ruby wiped at her eyes.

  “So that’s what we do.” I stiffened against the catch in my voice. “Don’t fret about me. I’m here to stay. I brought all my crap with me in my car.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Of course I’m staying.”

  “You’d do that for me Gracie? Stay here?” Ruby asked. “I know it’s gotta be rough for you to be back for the first time since…”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Anyway, this is Rapid City, not Meager. There’s no reason for me to go back there, is there?”

  Ruby let out a whoop, and her arms flew around my neck.

  “I’ll leave you two. I’ve got to get to work.” Alex bent over Ruby and kissed her slowly, his hand stroked her face. “Love you, Rube,” he murmured.

  “Love you too, baby,” said Ruby. Alex clicked the door shut behind him.

  I shuffled through my bag to look for the packet of gum I had bought the day before at a truck stop.

  Ruby let out a heavy sigh. “Amazing isn’t it?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’d think it would have been HIV that would be the end of me, what with all the crazy shit I’ve pulled. But nope, it was Momma’s revenge that sank its teeth into me instead.”

  My eyes shot up at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “The cancer, Grace. Mom’s DNA sucks. Aunt Jessie died of ovarian, Aunt Lucy had stomach or something nasty like that, and Mommy Dearest had pancreatic cancer.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t need to know back then. You had enough to deal with,” Ruby said. “That’s probably what made her extra crazy the last couple of years. Her looming death sentence.” Ruby’s head dropped back onto the pillow, and she let out a sigh. “Whatever.”

  I tossed my bag to the end of her bed and leaned over her, my hands planted in the mattress at her sides. “Listen to me, Ruby. You are going to beat this thing. Stop it in its tracks. All of us are in this together: you, me, Alex, and Jakey.”

  Ruby only let out a sob. I winced at the raw sound. “That’s what I think of all the time, Gracie.” Her voice was small, raspy. “I can’t leave my baby behind. He’s everything. I love being his mommy.” Her weary eyes filled with water again. I took her hand in mine and squeezed it hard. “Me getting pregnant was a t
otal surprise, a complete gift,” she said. “God can’t take that away from me now. He just can’t.”

  A knife ripped through my chest and tore through my heart.

  Ruby sat up a bit. “I’m sorry, so sorry, sweetie,” she said. “I don’t mean… you know I didn’t…”

  “I know, honey.” The tears finally spilled from my eyes. I had been holding onto them since I had left Seattle. Ruby wiped at my skin with her cold fingers.

  “I want to live this life I managed to patch together,” Ruby said. “It’s a good one, Gracie. Alex and I have been really happy. I never knew what that was before. I didn’t know I could have that. You did though. You had that.”

  “I want that for you,” I said. My voice hitched in the back of my throat. “You deserve it. And you’re going to keep it. You got to hold on with everything you’ve got. Everything. Every damned thing.”

  Ruby nodded and bit her lip. I buried my face in her neck. Her fingers smoothed down my hair, and she planted a kiss on the top of my head.

  My beautiful sister who had always braided and unbraided the strands of her life the way she damn well pleased was suffering the random cruelty of fate in an utterly different way this time. When years ago the club had asked her to take the fall for them, to plead guilty to selling drugs and go to prison, I had verged on the hysterical, but she had eerily taken it in stride.

  Ruby had only nodded silently at me when I had told her what Dig wanted and about the club’s pledge to look out for us. She had only stared at me as I stammered it out over the prison visitor’s telephone. My trembling hand had remained glued to the glass between us. This lung cancer was different, though. You couldn’t cut deals with cancer. This was utterly out of our control.

  This was hell.

  “We’re going to lick this thing, Rube. We are,” I said. “I’m home now. It’s my turn to help you.”

  I swallowed back the sourness that rose in my throat and peeked up at Ruby through my wet eyelashes. Her tired gaze had drifted outside the window.

  “Hey hon’, welcome to the party.”

  There was a party tonight at the One-Eyed Jacks clubhouse?

  Perfect.

  “You sure you’re at the right place?” the cute, blonde, twenty-something man asked me.

  Of course, if I were twenty years younger and wearing next to nothing, he wouldn’t have asked me that question. I smirked at the two prospects at the gate of the compound, an old small raceway from the sixties at a still-desolate corner on the north edge of Meager. Bikes of all shapes and sizes were lined up like ominous shiny metal soldiers in the lot. Two pickup trucks stood sentry at the other end.

  “I need to see Jump,” I said.

  The blonde recruit with a hint of a mustache squinted his eyes at me. “Really?” He leaned over the gate towards me and grinned. “And who are you, sweetheart?”

  “Tell him Little Sister is here to see him.”

  His features froze. “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Oh man.” He stared at me. His partner’s eyes went wide, and he got out his cell phone and pushed a button.

  “Junk? Yeah, um, got a lady out front here to see the prez. Says she’s Little Sister.” He pushed a thick mass of dark hair away from his face revealing a scar down his forehead. He looked me over top to toe. “Yeah, got ya.” He swallowed and stuffed his phone back in his jeans.

  “I’ll take you in.” He nodded at me. The blonde recruit unlocked the gate and held it open for me. I walked through.

  The dark-haired recruit jerked his chin at his brother. “Dawes, I’ll be back.” Dawes nodded at us.

  “My name’s Tricky, nice to meet you.”

  “Thanks, same here.”

  “Junk, the VP, will take you in,” he said.

  We moved through the vast courtyard past the line of bikes. I recognized Miller’s GMC truck in the lot. I sucked in air as we approached the main building. At the double metal door, a goateed, black-haired man, muscular arms crossed at his wide chest with a VP’s patch on his leather cut, waited for us.

  “Hey, I’m Junk.” He shook my hand. “I’ll take you in.” He turned on his heel. I followed him through the double doors.

  My eyes blinked at the familiar smells once we strode through the main hallway… metal, faded alcohol and stale tobacco that had once been the fragrance of happiness and contentment to me. Loud noises and cheers came from the distance. The black leather biker boots Dig had given me on our last Christmas together made a distinct clomping sound on the bare concrete. This was the same concrete they had once strode over in what felt like a past life.

  I used to belong here.

  Did I still?

  My damp hands smoothed down my short slim denim skirt as I sucked in my tummy and adjusted my favorite black leather belt with the intricate silver embroidery. I gave a final tug to the form-fitting draping black blouse, and pushed back a lock of hair over my ears past my silver chandelier earrings. Dig’s silver skull ring sat on the index finger of my right hand. I traced over my short gold and silver necklaces, a tiny cross and a peace sign Ruby had given me a million years ago.

  My hand tugged down on the one long silver chain I wore and settled on the medallion hanging from it. I fingered the skull engraved in the silver with a single diamond chip in one eye socket, like the One-Eyed Jacks logo. Dig had given it to me as a wedding present. My thumb traced over our names that were engraved on the back.

  Whatever tonight turned out to be, Dig was here with me, and I would get done what needed to get done. For Ruby. I may have lost absolutely everything once upon a time, but I would do my damnedest to make sure that didn’t happen to my sister.

  We made the next turn in the photograph-lined hall. Sucking sounds and heavy breathing filled the space. I turned my head down the shadowy hall to the right that led to the bedrooms. I could barely make out a red-headed woman spilling out of a tiny white bikini top on her knees. She was sucking off a tall man facing away from us wearing a knit cap. His hands were fisted in her hair, and he thrust his hips into her greedy mouth. Her hand rubbed the base of his shaft as her head bobbed over his dick. Junk turned to me and shrugged. I grinned and rolled my eyes back at him.

  Junk stopped. “Yo, Lock!”

  Mr. Blow Job jerked his head towards us in the shadows.

  “Wrap it up, dude,” Junk said. “You’re gonna want to be inside for this one.”

  Lock flicked his fingers at us and only pumped his hips faster into the girl’s mouth. How efficient. I had ceased to find these sorts of things embarrassing a very long time ago. It was part of the shameless freedom of club life. Maybe it was awkward and crude, but I didn’t find it shocking or as very dramatic as I had when I had first walked into this clubhouse over eighteen years ago. That was the day I had left the courthouse choking on tears, because my sister had just been sentenced to a year and a half in jail for a crime she was not responsible for.

  The judge’s gavel cracked against wood. I began to shake.

  As Mom used to say: you play, you pay. Ruby Hastings now had to pay.

  I knew Ruby must have had a hand in the drug deal she was being accused of, but Jump certainly had engineered it and was the main player in the equation. Not to mention the two members of the Demon Seeds, the rival gang, whom she also hung out with.

  Ruby had been sleeping with Jump, but she wasn’t his Old Lady. In truth, she was a club bitch who was going to take the fall. She didn’t really merit their full loyalty or support. However, as Dig had mentioned, Ruby had come through for them time and time again on odd jobs and little missions. I never knew what exactly. “Club business,” she would mutter and wave me off. “Don’t ask me that shit,” Dig had said over that breakfast he had treated me to. Was it drug deals? Did the club pimp her out undercover when she worked at Tingle to rival gangs or drug dealers? My imagination swam with the lurid possibilities.

  All of Ruby’s bad-assness and diligence had earned her a certain measure of
respect, though. If her going to jail was somehow going to “resolve major issues” for them, and she had been loyal to the club in the past, I was confident they wouldn’t let us “flap in the wind,” as Dig had pointed out. Somehow that didn’t comfort me much, though. That only meant I was in trouble too. Ruby most certainly was aware of this. She agreed to go down for all of us.

  I was used to fending for myself, but Ruby had always been around, flitting about like a moth to a bright light in the darkness, sometimes out of sight, but always fluttering back. I never felt alone; she’d always returned eventually.

  Ruby rose from her chair, and the officers immediately clicked handcuffs on her wrists. She turned slightly, and her hard eyes found mine. I knew what she was thinking. I could hear her voice burning through my heart.

  “Love you no matter what, so just suck it up.”

  But now those words took on a whole new meaning. My sister was taking on a heavy burden, a responsibility, for herself, for me, for the club. The force of it positively gleamed from her steely gaze. My lungs froze.

  Her body stiffened, and she turned away from me. The officers pulled her out of the courtroom. The club lawyer tucked his papers and folders into his briefcase and clicked the lock. Acid rose in the back of my throat.

  I drove home in my dad’s old Chevy Jimmy. I should be grateful he had left it behind, right? What was left? Just me and everyone’s castoffs. The sobs broke from my chest and wouldn’t stop. I could barely see the road ahead of me. I barreled through the front door, collapsed on my bed, and heaved for air and salvation.

  But I knew there was none to be had.

  I twisted on my back and listened to the sudden silence in the house. Silence all through my room, Ruby’s bedroom, the bathroom with dated fixtures and dull tile, the narrow hallway treaded with worn green carpeting and decorated with small framed squares of Grandma’s embroidery of strawberries and daisies, the small living room with its bulky couches in that tired blue and green striped pattern. Our parents’ bedroom had been empty for years, because on a jag Ruby had sold the furniture and donated their clothes just as she had emptied the basement of years of clutter except for the washer and dryer. There was sheer silence for once in the house, save for the ticking of that ugly oversized clock in the shape of a daisy with huge petals that had hung in the kitchen since day one.