FILTHY SINS_Sons of Wolves MC

by Nicole Fox

  “What? Because you know I’m right!”

  “You aren’t seriously going to stand there and tell me I’m a bad person for contacting my own mother. I know that’s not seriously what you’re going to do. Is it? Really? Come on, Dad. Really?”

  He folds his arms and grins at me sideways. “Why? Have I made a good point? Has the old drunk finally stumbled onto something?”

  I drink down the glass of water. The glass knocks against my teeth; I’m shaking. “I won’t listen to this,” I say, placing the glass on the side, afraid if I don’t I’ll shatter it in anger.

  “Your mother left us,” he says. “She just up and left because she didn’t think decades of marriage was worth a damn. She fled to California with a goddamn yoga instructor and you’re telling me—what? What are you telling me? That that’s perfectly acceptable, fine and dandy? She can go around fucking all the yoga instructors she wants and I’m not supposed to say anything about it? And what—when she runs off to California, that’s supposed to just be okay?”

  “I’m leaving,” I say. “Take the pills. Get some sleep.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Believe it or, I have things to do. My life doesn’t revolve around you.”

  “I never said it did!” Dad snaps. “I didn’t ask you to come down to the garage.”

  “Actually, you did. You’re just too drunk to remember.”

  “I loved her,” he says when I’m at the door. “I really loved that woman. Maybe my work made me angry sometimes, but I never hit you, or her, did I? I never went that far. I was angry, but . . . policing makes men angry, Nancy. That’s what it does.”

  I pause, fighting the urge to look back at him. If I look back I’ll see the tears in his eyes, and then the absurd guilt will grip me. “I’m leaving,” I say, and then open the door.

  I climb into my car and push the seat back, laying my head on the rest and staring up at the mid-afternoon sun. I drum my fingers on the steering wheel and try to clear my mind. I have the after-argument blues, which I often have when it comes to Dad. Now that I’m out of the argument, I can think of a dozen things I should’ve said to him. I’m stewing over these when my cell rings.

  I take it out, expecting it to be Dad. But it’s not. It’s Mom.

  “Hi,” I say, keeping my voice as carefree as possible. The last thing I need right now is a Mom-Dad civil war.

  “Hey, sweetie,” Mom chirps. In the background, lobby music plays. She’s at the reception at her boyfriend’s health clinic, I know. “Just thought I’d check in. How’re things?”

  “I met a man named Fink today who might be the most attractive man I ever met. Oh, and we almost kissed.”

  “Nancy? Is that you? Nancy?”

  “Ha, ha, ha. Your jokes never get old, Mother.”

  “I wish that was the same for the rest of me,” Mom says. “So what happened with this man?”

  I tell the half-truth, omitting Dad and claiming we were interrupted by Sal.

  “Oh, spicy. Did you get his number, or give him yours?”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh, that’s . . . But I can tell you like him, dear. Your voice has that funny high-pitched sound. It was exactly the same in second grade when you had a crush on that little boy. What was his name?”

  “I don’t sound like a third-grader, Mom. I work in a law office.”

  “Ooh, excuse me, Ms. Fancy Pants.”

  I roll my eyes. “Did you want something in particular?”

  “Only to beg you to move to California—”

  “As usual.”

  “As usual,” she agrees. “I’m sure you could find work up here. And then you’d be away from that man—if you can even call him a man.”

  “Mom, I don’t like listening to Dad bad-mouth you, and I don’t like listening to you bad-mouth him. Please don’t.”

  “I’m just making a comment, dear,” Mom says. “That’s all. Why stay in Salem with a drunken, bitter has-been when you can live in the land of sun with tanned bodybuilders?”

  “I have to go,” I say. “I’m late for work.”

  “To see your man, you mean. You sound smitten.”

  “Smitten. Jesus, Mom.”

  “Bye, then! I’ll call you when you’re less smitten.”

  I hang up and look up at the sky again. I should go back to work, but I used a half-day of vacation to meet Dad at the garage, which means there isn’t much point unless I want to reclaim two hours of holiday time. And the idea of returning to work now is like the idea of returning to school halfway through the summer holidays; my internal clock has already adjusted. It’s more than that, too. My mind keeps straying to Fink, to that brief instance when our lips touched. I have kissed a few men in my life, deep kisses, supposedly passionate kisses, stolen kisses and shy kisses, but I’ve never felt that kind of electricity, as though the kiss was a prelude to true passion, as though I could sink forward, secure in the knowledge that he would catch me.

  I laugh at myself. “Melodramatic,” I mutter. “Looking too deeply into it.”

  And now I’m talking to myself! That’s how I know I’m too full of energy. I once read three chapters of a book aloud without realizing it, only becoming aware when my neighbor knocked on the wall since it was four in the morning.

  “See him,” I whisper, wondering. “But how?”

  I know I need to do something. I can’t sit here muttering to myself like a crazy person.

  I turn on the GPS and search for The Mermaid, the bar Dad mentioned when talking about the Sons of Wolves. The GPS finds it. It’s only a few miles away, a ten-minute drive. I chew my lip, wondering if this makes me crazy, wondering if this crosses a line. He was muscular and sweat- and oil-flecked and sexy and my lips still hunger for his, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I can hound him to his favorite bar. But apparently it does, because before I consciously make the decision, the GPS is speaking to me in its oddly seductive feminine voice: “Turn left.” But she might as well be saying, “Oh, yes.”

  The bar is a mid-scale place with a neon mermaid lying atop the sign, the sign flashing dimly in the sunlight. I expected a more dive-bar-type place, but it’s more commercial than that. Families sit in the booths and frat boys sit at the bar. The waitresses and waiters walk around with mermaid and merman lower halves, wrapped around their waists like towels, their “tails” sometimes splitting open to reveal human legs.

  It’s busy. I wonder why, but then I notice that it’s happy hour. I look around the room. It stretches far back, down a set of stairs to a basement area with more seats and an arcade and a few pool tables. I head to the bar, needing to steel myself with alcohol. I’ve never been the strut-into-a-bar-ultra-confident kind of woman before. I need courage, preferably of the Dutch variety.

  I order a vodka and coke and watch the TV over the bar, though I’m not really watching it. I’m just staring at it, hoping the businessman next to me gets the hint. He doesn’t.

  “Hey there.” He slides up the bar. Nice enough, perhaps, with his clipped brown hair and brown eyes and gray suit with a silver watch displayed purposefully, his sleeves rolled up. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” I say. “But I’m actually meeting somebody.”

  “I’m just saying hi.” The man gives me his winning smile. He whitens his teeth. “Can’t a man just say hi these days?”

  “Of course he can,” I say. “I’m not saying you can’t say hi. I’m just saying that this will almost certainly not end where you want it to end, and that’s fine. We’re at a bar. I don’t blame you for hitting on me. I just think you should know where I stand.”

  He narrows his eyes. “That’s easily the most polite way I’ve ever been told to go fuck myself. Fair enough.”

  He leaves, and I sip my vodka and coke. But then a frat boy slides up next to me. “Whoa. Hey, baby. Whoa.”

  Kill me.

  Chapter Four

  Fink

  I gave the man a chance. I keep t
elling myself that, over and over. I gave him a chance to back the fuck off. I gave him a chance and the old bastard just kept on coming. I wouldn’t give a damn if it hadn’t happened at Sal’s place. Sal’s a good man. He knows that hiring a Son of a Wolf can cause him trouble, but he hired me anyway. And I’ve gone and caused hassle at his place of business. I pot the black and use the stick to stretch out my back, watching the man watching me.

  “That was pretty slick,” he says. “You didn’t look that slick when I was watching you warm up against yourself. Not that slick at all.”

  “What can I say?” I place the stick on the table and pick up his fifty dollars. “Beginner’s luck, I guess.”

  He’s a big man, and the men behind him are big men, but this is also a Sons of Wolves establishment. They know who I am, and even if they don’t, I reckon I have a decent chance. Assholes like these always overestimate themselves. I never knew him but I bet my dad was the same, the sort of asshole to run out on a woman dying of about ten different illnesses. Thinking of that makes me angry, and having this redhaired fat-faced ape stare at me makes me angry.

  “Do something,” I say, “or get the fuck outta my face.”

  I neck my whisky as the man and his friends shuffle away, grumbling about how if the world was made different they’d teach me a lesson. I beat another guy, take his twenty, and then head up to the bar. I need a drink. Maybe if I drink enough I’ll be able to get Nancy out of my head. Nancy—how many times did her father bark her name at her like she was a dog? Maybe that was what made me so damn pissed off. There was this beautiful woman, this smart woman in a buttoned-up shirt and pencil skirt and all the rest of it, and she had this sweaty asshole barking at her and she was just taking it.

  That kiss, though . . . I’m not normally a man to give much of a damn about kissing, but that kiss was something else. That kiss ended way too soon. Maybe it isn’t right for a Son of a Wolf to kiss the ex-sheriff’s dad, but I never claimed to be right. I wonder what the boys at the club would think of it.

  I reach the bar and spot her, sitting on the other side, some frat guy leaning over her. She looks flustered but composed at the same time, a look I’ve never seen in a person. The frat guy is wearing a football jacket with a ring on his pinkie which he shows her by leaning way too close and slathering in her face. I pace over to them without thinking. I won’t turn to violence unless he does, but I can’t exactly say I’m not hoping for it.

  “Hello,” I say, grinning at them both.

  Nancy’s face, man, her face in this moment could make me die happy. It lights up like we’ve known each other far longer than a few minutes. Affection fills her wide eyes. And then she fights it back. I get the sense that she’s often fighting a battle with her emotions.

  “See what it says?” The frat boy turns. “Hey, dude, can I help you?”

  “You can help me by getting off that seat. I reckon that’s my seat.”

  “Are you fuckin’ kidding me? You do know that even Eminem don’t have that hairstyle anymore, right, bud?”

  I grin wider. “Funny man,” I say. “I wonder how funny you’d be with your tongue in a blender. Maybe I’ll feed it to you. But don’t be too upset. You won’t be able to taste it.”

  “You’re a weirdo, man.” He stands up straight, squaring off against me. He’s a little shorter, a little skinnier, and my bet is he’s never killed a man.

  “Do you really want to do this?” I ask. “Is this really the route you want to take? Think carefully, because once we start you can’t change your mind.”

  He looks into my eyes, decides he sees something he doesn’t like, and flees down the bar. “Freak,” he mutters.

  I slide into his seat. “I hope you don’t mind,” I say, gesturing the barman.

  “I don’t need saving,” she says, “if that’s what that was.”

  “So you were enjoying yourself? Because you sure did look happier to see me than you did with him.”

  “Oh, my savior!” She shakes her head, a sardonic look piercing me. “I don’t need saving,” she repeats.

  “Okay.” I order a whisky and order her another vodka and coke.

  “How did you know?” she asks.

  “Well, that’s coke, and I don’t reckon you’re a whisky or rum kind of lady.”

  “So I’m a lady now?”

  “You know,” I say, “this whole I-don’t-need-saving-I-don’t-like-compliments routine would work a helluva lot better if your cheeks weren’t redder than a baboon’s ass.”

  She touches her face reflexively and then scowls at me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Okay, let me ask you something, Nancy. What are you doing here? I knocked your old man onto his ass an hour ago and now you’re here, when here just so happens to be a Sons of Wolves hangout. Can you explain that to me?”

  She blushes a deeper shade of red. “I guess the universe works in mysterious ways.”

  “I guess it does. Come downstairs with me. We’ll get a booth. Quieter, more private.”

  She bites her lip, and then nods. “Okay.”

  We take the corner booth, the most secluded in the bar, tucked away at the back behind the pool tables. I flag down a waitress. “A tray of your finest shots, please.”

  “Are we getting drunk?” Nancy asks. “Because I should warn you. I have a very high tolerance for alcohol.”

  “Is that right? Then I guess we’ll have to make this a little game.”

  “You’ll lose.” She grins wickedly.

  She giggles, about the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard, and then takes off her jacket and straightens her back. Her white shirt is slightly see-through; her pale pink bra flashes through. She sees me looking, looks as if she might protest, but then smiles shyly up at me. Damn, but I want this woman, want her bad, want her more than I’ve ever wanted any woman I can think of. This isn’t some club girl interaction, where we take what we need and flee. This is something else.

  The waitress returns with the shots. I move around the table so that I’m sitting closer to Nancy, so close that our legs touch. She moves a little closer, too, pressing her thigh against me. “What even are these?” she asks.

  “Shots,” I say.

  “But what kind?”

  “The kind that have alcohol in them.”

  “Oh, so you’re a comedian, are you?” Her smile is captivating. Her smile is warmth. Her smile is a light at the end of a tunnel. I try and calm myself, tell myself she’s just a woman, but she doesn’t seem like just a woman. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I reckon you owe me a kiss for saving you from that frat boy,” I say.

  “I’ve already paid you, you monster!”

  “Not for the frat boy.” I grin. “That requires additional payment.”

  “Additional payment.”

  “When you smile like that, you get puffed-up hamster cheeks.” I prod her cheeks playfully. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

  She slaps my hand away. “You’re just trying to delay. A big strong man like you scared of a few shots? Tut-tut, what would the big bad biker gang say?”

  “They would probably tell me to take you home and do nasty biker-related things to you.”

  She brings her hand to her forehead, pretending to faint. “Oh, how big and tough you are!”

  “Just drink, woman.”

  “I’m just waiting for you to take the pacifier out of your mouth.”

  We neck the shots, five each, and then I order another tray. We get through another five shots each and then sit next to each other, almost face-to-face.

  “You’re not drunk,” I comment.

  “Not drunk.” She giggles, and then smiles sideways. “But if you want to present the charge that I’m tipsy, I won’t deny it.”

  “Present the charge,” I repeat. “So you really are a lawyer, then?”

  She explains: she works in a law office, but she’s not a lawyer. “I spend most of my time combing over d
ocuments. It’s more like English literature, to be honest. Close reading.”

  “Okay, ma’am.” I nod mock-serious. “I know exactly what you’re talking about. I understand completely what that means. I’m on board. I am, in fact, a professor.”

  “Were you always a sarcastic asshole, or did that happen when you dyed your hair?”

  “I think a little of both.”

  I lean forward even more, so that our lips are almost touching. She gasps, and then swallows, and then licks her lips. “What are you doing?” she asks, voice faint.