by Hazel Parker
Yes, even after two weeks of not contacting her, I was still laying claim to her in the group. Who was going to get her, anyway? Not Uncle or Fitz. They were either too old or too straight-edge. Not Biggie. He respected me too much and wouldn’t have pulled some shit like that.
I didn’t know Niner, but his quiet demeanor seemed like it would be more likely to scare someone off from being interested than pique their interest.
That just left me, the guy who hadn’t contacted her in two weeks. I guessed there was just something about that blonde hair, that elegant stride, those sexy legs, that beautiful smile that just kept me thinking about her, even after all this time.
“So call everyone up you can; we’ll start playing music and get the ball rolling at eight,” Uncle said, briefly shaking my thoughts. “Marcel, any other ‘business’ you want to talk about?”
Our first meeting, with champagne, with a party planned, and I was about to discuss business?
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
“Just for everyone to fucking have a good time tonight,” I said with a smirk. “We didn’t get this club so we could be bums. Let’s fucking rage, eh?”
The boys applauded and cheered. I moved past them to the exit.
“I’m going to go get some beer,” I said.
“Nah, I got it all,” Uncle said. “First party’s on me.”
“I’ve seen your taste in alcohol; it’s too Manhattan for me.”
“You fucking wish you could taste the shit I do,” Uncle said, but he did it with a smile. “Get whatever the hell you want. But know it’s not necessary.”
I just wanted the excuse to make that phone call I should have made no later than thirteen days ago. This was going to be so awkward, but I just had to do it. If nothing else, I had to contribute something to the party that wasn’t alcohol.
As soon as I got outside, I pulled up her name on my phone. She’s going to think I’m misdialing. She’s going to wonder what the fuck I’m doing.
Fuck it. I’m a free man with his own club now. I can do whatever the fuck I want.
I hit send and held the phone to my ear. It only got through two rings before she picked up.
“Marcel?”
Her voice sounded surprised but in a hopeful sort of way. I didn’t hear her sound annoyed or disappointed. Shocked, sure. But upset? Not really.
“Yeah, hey, I know it’s been a minute. How are you?”
“I didn’t know a New York minute had become two weeks,” she said, but she giggled at the line like she was proud of herself for it; she wasn’t mocking me.
“Yeah, I know, it’s a long story.”
It’s not. You were just a pussy and made excuses. Now that you’re inviting her, though, no holding back.
“It’ll be better if I explain things in person. I—”
“So you do want to see me again.”
I hesitated on the phone, trying to find the right words. Eventually, I just gave up. There was no such thing as the right words, just my words.
“Yes.”
A pause came at the other end of the line.
“I want to say that this feels weird, like I should say no, but in reality, I haven’t gone out since our date. If nothing else, it’ll get me out of my apartment on a Friday night.”
She sighed.
“You know where my apartment is. Come to me, and we can go for a walk. It’s too late for coffee.”
“I can be there in ten,” I said.
That may not have been true walking distance, but I had my bike just outside the shop. The bike was an absolute godsend for getting wherever I wanted to—to say nothing of how it gave me authenticity as the president and a stress release as a human.
“Then I’ll see you here.”
She hung up. But she hadn’t quit me just yet.
* * *
Christine was already waiting for me when I got to her place on the bike. She had on jeans and a purple top that distinguished her from previous nights; the top only had one shoulder strap, yet it somehow looked simple. She was someone who knew how to send both alluring and wholesome messages simultaneously, and it was something of a gift.
“You remember what my last words to you were on our first date?” she said.
“Call you?”
She nodded.
“I mean, hey, technically, I did.”
That got Christine to laugh, and her smile remained even as her words seemed a little tough.
“No one has kept me waiting two weeks,” she said. “If I had any sense, I’d ask you why the other girls you went out with didn’t work and how I wound up moving up the rankings by default.”
“And my answer to that would be simple. There isn’t anyone else.”
Christine tried to hide the smile, but it flickered on her face just long enough for me to notice.
“In this world, there are two things I really give a shit about. My club, and my daughter. Everything else is a distant third. I don’t have time to give a shit about dating. You were someone who came into my life at the restaurant almost just by coincidence. I’m not complaining, in fact, I’m fucking grateful, but that’s not something I can easily duplicate. Which means that no, I’m not seeing anyone else.”
I almost added that I couldn’t stop thinking of her, but that sounded a little too much like a teenage boy desperate to get laid than it did sweet.
“So then, Mr. Not Seeing Anyone Else,” Christine said. “I imagine that you were calling me because you had an idea of how to hang out.”
“I do,” I said. “My club, Savage Saints. We’re throwing our first ever party. It’s going to be great. It’s—”
I could see Christine looked extraordinarily uncomfortable with the idea. It reminded me of how, last time, she had managed to hint at things without outright saying them. I didn’t mind her saying no, but I needed to know why.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing, you know. I can see your face.”
Christine slumped, biting her lip.
“OK, smart guy,” she said with a smirk. “I can’t, no, I choose not to do parties.”
“You choose not to do parties? What is this, some sort of meeting of empowerment?”
Something about the way Christine reacted told me that that joke might have been in poor taste.
“It’s just… I have my reasons, OK? I don’t want to get into them.”
“I got into mine when you asked why I hadn’t gone to the Albanian shop in years.”
Christine’s lips twitched, and her face pulled into a grimace.
“Never mind, I—”
“No, I’ll go,” Christine said, shocking me. “Just don’t let me drink. Please don’t let me drink, OK?”
So, something with alcohol. Not sure how that’s going to work. Not sure how her not drinking is going to jive with the fact that we have all this alcohol.
But she’s hot. She’ll make others think that this club has girls, even if only I can have her.
“I’ll make sure of it,” I said. “Brooklyn Repair at eight. We just took over the building. I’ll stop you from drinking any of our booze.”
Put that way, I guess it wasn’t so bad. Christine gave a gentle smile.
“I kept wondering if you’d call,” she said. “This far out, I worried that I had lost the spark. But rest assured, that spark is still very much there.”
As it is for me, Christine.
As it very much is for me.
Chapter 10: Christine
One Week Earlier
I knew this meant he wasn’t interested.
I knew, rationally, that a man who hadn’t called after a week was a man who wasn’t going to call at all.
I just wished it hadn’t happened the first time that I had really put myself out there and risked being vulnerable. Except you weren’t. He told you his past, and you didn’t even hint at yours. You just danced away.
It’s how it always is. It’s w
hy you started drinking, isn’t it? You can’t face up to your demons and your darkness, so you avoid them as much as you can until it’s so far too late and you have no choice but to admit your weakness and failures.
You fool.
It was making it even worse that I actually liked him. There was so much that, if I could, I would go back and change. I should have just kissed him. It wasn’t like a kiss made us marriage material. It just meant that we liked each other enough to take that step.
I felt stupid and ashamed. I groaned loudly in my office, called myself a fucking idiot out loud, and sat in the chair before my nearest painting.
But I didn’t want to paint. I didn’t want to call Marcel.
I… I… wanted a drink.
Yeah, I did. I wanted a fucking drink. I wanted a glass of wine or a shot of vodka or something to help dull the pain a little bit. I wanted something that wouldn’t make me feel like such a goddamn idiot. I wanted something that wouldn’t embarrass me as I had embarrassed myself. Was that too much to ask?
Apparently, given that I’d now been sober for sixty-eight days, the answer was yes. Really, the answer could have been sixty-eight hours, and it would have been too much to ask.
But unlike most other spots, when “too much to ask” implied a bad thing, in this case, I knew it was saving my ass. It was preventing me from making an enormous mistake.
But I was just so in my head, so disappointed with how this had fallen apart, and so confused about how a first date could have gone from what we had into… well, what we didn’t have. I needed some outlet, and painting wasn’t going to do it. Alcohol wasn’t going to do it.
Maybe sex?
The thought only came to mind because Tucker, unlike Marcel, had not stopped calling. I ignored his calls on Sunday and Wednesday, holding out hope that Marcel was still going to call, but with it being Friday, it seemed like a fait accompli that he was never going to call me. If I wanted to have some relief through sex, Tucker was the option.
And on top of that, he could get me back into the Wall Street game. It would have paid infinitely better than the job at Egg, the benefits and future would have looked much brighter, I could have even set myself up to retire young…
But young was a loose term. Young meant forty, not in forty days. I knew myself and how weak I was. In that environment, I would suffer. Wall Street probably saw AA like it saw some Occupy Wall Street protesters—as an amusing distraction to be barreled over as soon as someone wanted to make something happen.
I couldn’t do that either.
I just had to accept that today was going to be a stressful day, and this weekend was going to suck. I couldn’t believe I was doing this, but I texted my boss and asked for extra shifts over the weekend. Even if it meant not working during the week, at least it would be easier to avoid alcohol on a Tuesday and Wednesday than it would have been during a weekend.
At least be good until you get to a hundred days. It’s a milestone you set for yourself. You can live up to it.
Or until Marcel calls.
Because if that happens, after all this time… I’m not going to be able to resist.
* * *
Present Day
I knew this meant he was interested.
But it still felt surreal as hell to know, two weeks after our first date in which he had all but ghosted me, I was about to hang out with him again.
And now, because of it, I had a problem. I couldn’t bring myself to say I had a problem with alcohol, so instead of just admitting that I had a weakness and that I couldn’t drink, I had hemmed and hawed. I’d nearly lost Marcel for real there—or what felt like for real—and so I hastily agreed to go.
I knew a solution that others in AA had offered when attending a party was unavoidable. Get a cup that was not clear but was like everyone else there, fill it with water, and sip slowly. Get your own drinks, refuse offers from others, and do whatever the main thing was. If it was dancing, do it. Flirting, ditto.
Whatever it took not to draw attention to myself. Of course, that was easier said than done. That was especially easier said than done considering I was, well, attractive. I didn’t like to call myself pretty for fear of sounding arrogant, but I had never lacked for male attention.
Marcel, if you like me, stay by my side. I’ll do my best, but I’m going to need your help.
Please don’t abandon me twice.
The hours passed by quickly. I kept on my current outfit, but even that felt like a bit much. He had said Brooklyn Repairs was the party’s location, right? I guess it made sense to be hosting a motorcycle club party at a place where bikes would be in abundance, but still.
Who threw a party at an auto repair shop? That was like telling college kids to throw a party at a child’s playground. The scene and the activity didn’t match.
But, then again, just as said college kids could have easily found a way to turn such a scene into an awesome party, I guessed the Savage Saints could have easily found a way to throw a kickass party at the auto repair shop. I would find out soon enough.
When I walked up a little after eight, around eight-fifteen, I saw a sign hanging on the front door. “Inaugural Savage Saints Party, All Ladies Welcome!” I rolled my eyes at the prospect of walking into a party with the five men I’d seen at Egg two weeks ago and about two dozen women walking around. I knew enough about motorcycle clubs to know that modesty was not a strength of theirs.
But, then again, if Marcel was going to be my only date for the night, I didn’t have much to worry about.
I opened the door, walked inside, and gawked.
It was the most makeshift party I had ever seen in my life. There were still cars near the back that needed repairs, and the “bar” was an open door to the office, where the black man who was part of the group from a couple weeks ago stood pouring drinks and having one of his own as he appeared to regale two brunette girls. In the repair section, there were about ten men talking to about fifteen women, meaning some of the lucky ones got to talk to multiple girls.
Some, though, even at this early an hour, already had their arms around their women and were in the process of copping feels on their asses. One was even making out and had begun sticking his fingers down the front of the woman’s shorts. It was a degenerate sight that I had not seen since my days on Wall Street.
“You’re late!”
I looked right to see Marcel with a red solo cup in his hand, his arms extended. He embraced me tightly and kissed me on the top of the head as I fell into him. Somehow, despite having been in this building for what was likely a couple hours, he didn’t smell like oil and car. He just smelled… like a sexy man, really. He had some sort of cologne on that was a little musky, but with him, it worked absolutely perfectly.
“Oh please, I could say that to you about the last two weeks,” I said, taking a small step back.
He smelled great, but there was the scent of something else that was especially noticeable on his breath. Alcohol.
“Before we get talking, grab me a cup of water, would you? In a red cup.”
“Water?” he said, but thankfully quietly enough no one else heard.
“You promised, Marcel,” I said. “Don’t tell me you’re going to change your mind now that you’ve been drinking.”
“Oh, no, I know, I’m just playing with you.”
Are you, though? Is you being in this environment going to make anything between us possible? Or are we always going to have this divide because of you being a Savage Saint?
“Come on, let’s—”
“No, I’ll stay here,” I said with a smile. “It’s OK. I’m not going anywhere.”
Marcel looked disappointed. I didn’t want to go into the room with the bar and risk anything else—even though I was already risking a hell of a lot just by being here. I knew if I went in there, I’d start asking questions about the type of alcohol, which was like a gambling addict asking about the best types of games to play. It was a very dangerous s
tep in the wrong direction.
“I promise! Just go get me some water please, OK?”
Marcel smiled, winked at me, and then headed in. The feeling that I was making a mistake was getting heavier by the second; now, not only was I somewhere that alcohol temptation was going to spike significantly, but I was bothering Marcel. Maybe we just weren’t meant to be. Maybe, had we met when I was on Wall Street or sober for much longer, this could have worked, but the timing wouldn’t allow it. There was too much—
Marcel came back with a solo cup, smiling. I looked down. It was clear. I smelled it. It didn’t smell like vodka. I took a sip, trusting him.
It was clean. I was good.
“You do have water here,” I said with a laugh.
“You might be the only one drinking it tonight,” Marcel warned with a laugh. “But yes, we do have water.”
“Show me what else you have.”
Marcel proceeded to give me the two-minute tour of what I already knew was there. I knew how small the space was, and I could guess at what different things were. He pointed out different people to me. He showed me that the bartender was a man named Niner; his brother, Jack, went by Biggie; he had an uncle that he just called Uncle—a man I immediately saw as something of a creeper to women—and then, finally, there was Fitz, a man wearing glasses who looked like he had wandered in by mistake.
And then, Marcel pointed out, were a bunch of people that Niner and Biggie knew, new recruits for the club that he didn’t know but that he hoped would evolve into full-fledged members. Going by a relative scale, it was pretty clear that even though Marcel had been drinking, he was the soberest one in the room.
“It’s because I’m the president,” he said when I asked him about it.
“President?”
“Yeah, the club has officers. President, VP, treasurer, secretary, sergeant-at-arms, which you can think of as like club bouncer and marketer rolled into one. I’m the president. I’m the one that started this idea.”