Edison

by Jessica Gadziala

  "Fucking hell, Edison," Sugar hissed, going back a step as the vodka poured all over the counter, dripping off the end. "Hope to shit it was a pussy shot with a reaction like that," he added with a smirk that made his gray eyes dance.

  Hell, a pussy shot would have been less shocking, to be honest.

  She was inviting me over to her place?

  I was pretty sure I understood Lenny enough to know that she didn't mean for a nice, rousing game of Parcheesi.

  She fucking booty-called me.

  Normally, a man would be thrilled at the idea of no-strings-attached sex.

  And don't get me wrong, I absolutely wanted to get Lenny into bed.

  I just wasn't sure that I wanted it under these circumstances.

  After another session with her, I was wondering if she would take me up on an offer of dinner. I wanted to see if I could get to know her a little bit without tequila being involved. Maybe it was a longshot, but I could give it a try.

  I didn't just want to fuck her.

  I wanted to get to know her.

  If she would let me.

  But who said we couldn't do it backward, right?

  Maybe she would be more inclined to open up after an orgasm. Or three.

  I dried off my hand to shoot off a reply.

  Just give me a time.

  I really shouldn't have been leaving the party.

  But that being said, it was likely to die down by two AM when the bar closed anyway. And half of the other guys would already have sneaked off to their rooms with their women, Reign and Summer included.

  That was when the other guys would call the new batch of clubwhores and cutsluts in to let the party take on a different vibe.

  I was actually happy for an opportunity to cut out of that.

  2:30

  That was the last text I got from her, even after texting her back to tell her I'd be there.

  As for me, well, my night took a different direction.

  Where I planned to get wasted with my brothers and maybe raise a little hell, I needed to hold myself to three drinks so I could be sober enough in the law's eyes to take off on my bike.

  "It's that gym chick, right?" Sugar asked a while later over the rim of his fifth drink. He was close to being able to keep up with me with booze. Close, but not quite. He was still as sober as a judge. "You fucks are dropping like flies. Pagan, Cyrus, and now you found a woman to lock you down. Who's next? Fucking Roderick?"

  "Yeah, don't think that kid is settling down for a while yet," I said with a shrug as I made a refill for Summer who was on her fourth martini. And she was a lightweight. Her cheeks were flushed, making her freckles stand out a little more. Her eyes were glassy and dancing, matching the huge smile she gave me when she demanded I 'hit her' again like we were playing blackjack instead of drinking to celebrate another year the world got to know her.

  "Maybe you'll get a girl!" Summer declared, head tipped to the side, looking over Sugar. "I mean, I'm sure you don't have a problem finding girls to warm your bed. But I mean more than that."

  "Summer, baby," Sugar started, brows creased, laying it on thick because all parties in the room knew he was just fucking with her, "How would these girls warm my bed exactly?"

  "You know," she insisted, rolling her eyes.

  "Maybe I don't," he countered, sliding her new drink toward her. "How about you tell me?"

  "I know what you're trying to do, you devil," Summer accused, taking a healthy pull of her drink.

  "Trying to do? Baby, I'm a fucking saint."

  "Right. Because I totally catch saints fucking girls on top of the drying machine in the basement. Damnit!" she hissed when she realized what she had said - exactly what Sugar had wanted her to. "You suck," she declared, small-eyeing him.

  "If I recall correctly," Sugar said, smile wicked, "she was the one doing the sucking."

  I didn't think it was possible, but she went even redder at that. "Lo!" she called over the thumping bass of the music. "Come save me from all these boys."

  A moment later, Lo walked up, giving Sugar a knowing look, having dealt with more than her fair share of men up at Hailstorm, and always being able to spot the troublemakers.

  "Hey Edison, did Lenny get in touch?" she asked, making Sugar shoot me a triumphant look.

  "Fucking knew it," he declared, sending Summer a wink.

  "Yeah, she got me."

  "And I bet she's going to be getting a lot more of you," Lo mused, lips curved up in a somewhat dreamy smile. You didn't know Lo unless you knew her badly guarded secret - her deeply romantic nature. She devoured romance novels that Cash claimed were constantly used to shake up their sex life. And she also loved each and every love story within her establishment and The Henchmen MC.

  "Don't be putting your romance juju on him," Sugar demanded. "I have few enough buddies to chase skirts with as it is."

  Lo sent him a smile. "I bet your time is coming sooner than you think too, Sugar," she told him with a devilish smirk.

  "You take that shit back," Sugar insisted, looking positively disgusted at the very idea. "There are far too many women out there for me to want to lock myself down with just one of them."

  "You say that," Lo agreed, nodding. "Until you meet that one girl. I mean if manwhores like Pagan and Cyrus can be happily monogamous..."

  Sugar shook his head, reaching for a shot. "I'm gonna drink until I forget we had this conversation. I like Kennedy and Reese, and the girls club in general, but I have no fucking plans to add to it anytime soon. Or ever. Yeah, never sounds about right."

  Lo looked back at me as Sugar walked away, lips curved up. "I give it six months," she offered. "His ass is going to fall and hard for some woman who comes blowing into his life like a tornado, sweeping him up before he gets a chance to try to anchor himself. But enough about Sugar. So you and Lenny," she went on, eyes twinkling.

  "I got nothing to report to you, Lo."

  "Fine," she relented, shrugging, likely figuring the details would surface soon enough. They always did. "But can we at least both agree that she's pretty fucking awesome? I thought about offering her a chance to work at Hailstorm, get her out of that shithole of a neighborhood and pervert-infested bar. She has the skills fighting-wise. And the determination to be the best she can be."

  "Why didn't you offer it to her then?" I asked, silently agreeing that she was, in fact, pretty fucking awesome, but figuring that did not need repeating; it was self-evident.

  Lo's face went a little guarded, something that wasn't exactly uncommon, but made it clear that you weren't going to get dick from her. Not even Roan, with his sordid, dark history of extracting information, could even get her to spill when she didn't want to.

  "I have a feeling that Lenny has her own business she needs to handle before I can even think of asking her. I doubt she would appreciate any distractions right now."

  Interesting.

  She picked up on it too.

  My first thoughts about Lenny were that she was readying herself for something; it was good to know my brain wasn't running away with itself. If Lo saw what I saw, then it was a pretty good bet that Lenny had some shit going on that she wasn't willing to talk about with anyone.

  It didn't take a genius to know that if it involved the most intensive training schedule known to man, that taught her all the ways to stave off an attack, or to instigate one, that whatever she had going on was going to involve bloody violence.

  I found the idea both intriguing and more than a small bit worrisome.

  Maybe that would seem odd given how short a time we had known each other, but this wasn't anything new for me. Before The Henchmen, my life was focusing on women who had the odds set against them. I worried about them all, even complete strangers.

  So this wasn't too soon for me.

  And Lenny had an advantage over most women I had known. Hell, most women in the world. But that didn't mean there weren't risks. That didn't mean there wasn't a chance for things to go badly
, for the other party to be more trained, better capable of getting one over on her, no matter how much she had hardened herself.

  And while I knew it wasn't my business, I wanted to find out what her shit was, and see if I could help with it at all.

  She wouldn't want that, I knew.

  She was too standoffish to open up, let alone invite in outside hands for help.

  But that didn't mean I couldn't try to do some figuring shit out on my own. Not to pry, but to protect her, to be backup if she ended up needing it. If she didn't, great, then she would never have to know that I looked into the situation. But if she did, then I would deal with the consequences of her anger, knowing damn well that at least her rage at me meant that she was safe, that I had protected her from the worst possible end result of the situation.

  So that was the plan.

  After I went over there and we both got to see if our chemistry was as explosive as it felt.

  "She's going to try her best to push you away," Lo seemed to pick up on my interest in Lenny that was clearly more than just sex.

  "I figure," I agreed, seeing no reason to lie to Lo.

  "You don't seem like a man who gets pushed around easily."

  My lips curved up a little at that. "I'm not."

  "And you'll make sure she isn't in too far over her head."

  It wasn't a question. But I agreed anyway.

  "That's the plan. From a distance."

  "Well then, Edison," she said, giving me a nod of approval even though Lenny wasn't technically one of her Hailstorm women, and she didn't exactly need to give me her approval, "go get your girl."

  A few hours later, after the birthday girl had been carried off to their room over Reign's shoulder, giggling like a schoolgirl the whole time which, in turn, gave Reign a smile too. Everything about him seemed more relaxed than it had been in about a year, since he had started to be seriously worried about his wife.

  "I'm out," I told the only two left in the common room who weren't surrounded by chicks - Roan and Reeve.

  And they both sent me a shared look, one of both understanding and, somehow, grief. I did, as a rule, mind my own business. Their paths weren't mine to drudge up and parade before them. But in rare moments, you didn't even have to; you could see it all plain as day on their faces.

  "Have fun," Reeve recovered first, but his voice held steeliness in it.

  "We'll make sure the kids don't burn the fucking place down," Roan added, giving me a nod, already looking off into the distance.

  With nothing left to say, I gave them a chin lift, and headed off to my bike.

  I got to her apartment at two-forty, sharing a hard, assessing look with the current leader of Third Street before tearing up the stairs where this time I did see a hooker and her John. But not engaging in a blowjob. Oh, no. They were straight-up fucking right there in the stairwell, the woman's body half-tilted over the railing, her tits spilling everywhere. It didn't escape me that her pupils were pinpricks. Doped up hookers. Not a new story, but still a sad one.

  By the time I reached her door, I felt like I needed a shower to wash this filth off. But I had a feeling that seeing Lenny would help wipe some of the grime away.

  I listened for a second, waiting to see if I heard anything inside before I bothered to knock and further piss off the dog I could hear two doors down, growling half-heartedly at my presence in the hall.

  "Motherfucker," she hissed from inside a second before I heard a small crash.

  For some reason, that made my lips curve up as I knocked.

  "Everything alright in there, love?" I asked, and even I could hear the amusement in my voice.

  I swear what I heard next was a growl as she stomped across the apartment, and yanked the door open. Her hand was holding a rag on top of her other hand, and there was the strong smell of brewing coffee in the apartment.

  "I can get a grown ass man unconscious in under fifteen seconds, but I can't manage to pour a cup of coffee without burning myself," she explained, rolling her eyes.

  She was tense.

  Tenser.

  She was always wound-up, but this was different. It was practically vibrating off of her. Her shoulders were up. Her movements were tight. Something was bothering her.

  I knew right then what I was.

  A release.

  Maybe I was somewhat bothered by that. Insulted even.

  I didn't want to be just a tension-relieving fuck.

  But then again, if a woman like Lenny was so desperately in need of one, it almost seemed wrong to deny her.

  So when she moved inside and walked back to her coffee machine, I moved inside, closing the door behind me, reaching to slide the chain on.

  Just a chain.

  So that crossed off one of my theories about her situation.

  Women who had stalkers tended to double (or triple) up on the locks. Especially in a neighborhood where no one would notice some random shithead, in a building with no doorman or central lock.

  It had been my most likely scenario.

  After all, one in six women will be stalked in their lifetime, to varying degrees of severity. It wasn't a huge leap that Lenny would. Especially given her penchant for stomping on men's egos. It wouldn't be a surprise if one of the guys who hit on her and got turned down would develop an obsession.

  But no way would she drop well over a thousand bucks on self-defense education... and not lock her door if that were the case.

  I'd never been inside an apartment in this particular building, but it was what you would expect.

  The floors were faux wood printed linoleum, scuffed and torn, peeling up in areas where it was clear furniture had been moved around too often. The space as a whole was cool, drafty from the ancient glass windows lining the wall across from the door. The walls were the plain yellow-faded-white that must have been there since well before Lenny moved in.

  Lenny didn't strike me as a 'spruce up the place' kind of woman. Between her job and the gym, it didn't seem like she had much time to spend in her apartment anyway.

  Her living room consisted of an ancient couch in a brown, gold, and red plaid pattern, the cushions sloped in the centers from use, the armrests almost threadbare. In front of it was a scuffed coffee table. There was no TV, but a decent stereo system on a small table beside the door. It was definitely not top-of-the-line likely because she couldn't afford it, but also because even if she did invest, there was a very real chance of it getting stolen in a place like this.

  "My iPod is in the boot beside the door," she told me without turning, like she somehow knew that was where I was looking.

  Just to have something to do, I went to fetch it, plugging it into the AUX, and clicking her Classic Rock playlist.

  When I turned back around to a crooning Pearl Jam belting out a tale of blackness, Lenny was standing there with two mugs of steaming black coffee.

  I crossed over, taking mine, feeling the strained tension, but unsure what caused it, what was going on in her head.

  "How was the party?"

  Yeah, she was definitely having some kind of internal struggle if she was engaging in the smallest of small talk. What was next? A discussion on the condition of the roads?

  "Loud. Full of booze. The usual." I took a sip of the coffee, feeling it scrape across my tastebuds. "Jesus Christ," I said with a cough.

  She chuckled a little at that. "I get like four or five hours of sleep a night. I need my coffee strong enough to jumpstart an elephant heart."

  I nodded at that, moving to sit on her couch, putting my cup on the table, having absolutely no intentions of drinking any more of that sludge, though you had to respect a woman who could drink something as bitter as that without so much as a wince.

  "Lenny," I called when she shuffled from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable which seemed completely foreign for her. She didn't strike me - or anyone - as someone who wasn't perfectly comfortable in her own skin, and therefore in any situation she found herself in. Her h
ead jerked up, startled, almost like she had been so up in her own mind that she forgot I was even there. "Come over here," I offered, my arm draped across the back of the couch.

  There was a slight hesitation before she moved toward me, still clutching her mug between two hands, looking off at her stereo where Eddie Vedder was begging to know why the woman he loved couldn't be the star in his sky.

  Even seated, her body was still taut as a string, and there was a part of me that was wondering if the smallest pressure would send her off.

  But that was a risk I was willing to take when I let my arm slip down and wrap around her shoulder, pulling her more tightly to my side. My other hand reached for her mug, my fingers brushing hers as I took it from her to put it down next to mine on the coffee table.

  She still had her gaze focused forward even as the song changed and Kurt Cobain's voice started asking about where his love slept the night before.

  "Lenny," I called, watching her profile. "If you want me to leave, just say it."

  "If I wanted you to leave, I wouldn't need for you to give me permission to tell you to leave," she shot back, but she still wouldn't meet my gaze.

  My other hand moved out, snagging her chin, forcing her face in my direction.

  And it was pure vulnerability I saw there.

  I wasn't arrogant enough to think it had anything to do with me. I didn't figure Lenny for the kind of woman who got sappy about sex. In fact, whatever it was that had prompted her to invite me over via text was likely what was on her mind right then. I figured that whatever it was, she needed an escape from it.

  I was the escape.

  And, I guess, if that was what she needed from me, if that was the only capacity she had room for, then, well, I could be an escape.

  "I get it," I told her, nodding. "You're a woman who knows her own mind." My arm curled around her, allow my fingers to whisper down the side of her neck, sending a small shiver through her body. "So, tell me," I started, hearing my own voice dipping lower. "What was on your mind when you invited me over tonight?"

  And just like that, the vulnerability was gone, replaced with something else, something burning, something that looked fucking good there...