My father described fate as the unexpected result of the natural development of life. I guessed Vince’s appearance was nothing short of that, and as I continued to sit and stare at the television, it angered me that he didn’t have a phone. He explained how he decided he didn’t want a phone after his divorce, and that he had lived for the last year without a television, and relied solely on music for at-home entertainment. At first I didn’t want to believe him, but after talking for a while about it, I realized he was being truthful, and more than likely imposing some weird type of punishment on himself for something he didn’t even do, or deserve to be punished for.
Sitting on the couch gripping the remote control like I was trying to squeeze the last unavailable ounce of toothpaste from an empty tube, I became mad at his ex-wife for treating him the way she did. No one deserved to be heartbroken, and even bad-ass bikers were included.
I seriously doubted I could ever be in an actual relationship with someone like Vince, and I further doubted that I would ever see him again, but the thought of it was pretty satisfying for the time being.
I relaxed onto the couch and daydreamed about riding on the back of his motorcycle in cut-off jean shorts, sneakers, and a ripped up tee shirt. With one hand wrapped around his waist and the other resting in between his thighs, we’d ride across the country without a worry, fucking at every place we stopped.
His ex-wife would call him back, and after a few angst-filled weeks of separation, we’d end up back together and his ex would get run over by a train. Together, we’d go to the funeral, only to meet the newest ex-husband, who would be with a girl twelve years his junior.
A true romance novel in the flesh.
The sound of a motorcycle woke me from my not-so-deep sleep. I sat up on the couch, confused as to whether the sound was something from my dream or reality. The silence provided all of the proof I needed that the motorcycle was in my dream. Frustrated and in need of a drink of some sort, I tossed my legs over the edge of the couch and wiped my eyes.
A thud against my front door startled me, and the sound of the doorbell that followed did more of the same. Slightly confused and maybe a little overanxious, I ran to the window and pulled the blinds.
Vince’s bike sat in the driveway.
I ran to the door and yanked it open.
Vince was leaning against the frame of the door, and his shoulder pressing against the wooden frame seemed to be the only thing holding him up. His head hanging down, and his face out of view, I suspected he was drunk and was attempting to make a bootie call.
A mild version of flattery filled me, and I reached for his arm to guide him in. As my hand touched his wrist, he glanced upward.
“Holy shit!” I gasped.
Someone had beaten him into an unrecognizable mess. Both eyes were swollen, and his face was covered in blood. As he fell into my arms, I noticed both of his lips were mangled. Far too much for me to hold up on my own, and with his entire weight pressing against me, he eventually fell from my arms and onto the floor.
As he tried to stand, he turned his mangled face toward me and did his best to smile. His once white teeth were covered in blood.
“You should…”
“Shhh, let me call an ambulance,” I said.
“No!” he grunted as he tried to push himself up from the floor. “No ambulance, no cops.”
I nodded my head in acknowledgement as he raised himself onto his elbows.
“You look half-dead,” I said as I reached for his arm.
“You should…see…the other guy,” he murmured.
And he collapsed onto the floor.
Chapter One Hundred Ninety-Seven
VINCE
July 1st, 2014
I did my best to open my eyes and tried to focus on my surroundings. The unfamiliar room was dark, illuminated only by the streetlights shining in through the cracks between the blinds. After a few long minutes of my eyes adjusting, I tossed my legs off the side of the bed and attempted to stand.
With each breath I took, it felt as if a knife was being inserted into my chest. I sat on the edge of the bed and searched my mind for memories of what had happened. After a few more minutes of confusion, I recalled the events of the Sunday night that got me to where I was.
A disagreement about a parking spot turned into a fight, and the fight was over almost before it started. The mouthy – and very disrespectful – driver of the truck was put in his place with half a dozen quick punches and a short choke hold. The other three passengers in the truck were a totally different story. While holding the driver in a choke hold and doing my best to explain the benefits of being respectful – all the while attempting not to actually choke him – one of his three friends blindsided me with a punch. Before I knew it, I was on the ground being kicked and stomped by three cowboys.
As they laughed and turned to walk away, I cut the calf of one of them. Through the leg of his jeans – and from the back of his knee to his ankle – I dug my knife as deep as I could, dropping him to the ground as he turned to walk away. As his two friends carried him away, I crawled to my bike and rode the three blocks to the closest place I knew to go.
Assuming I was still at Sienna’s home, but not sure of anything, I once again tried to stand. As I moaned in agony and relaxed on the edge of the bed, the bedroom door opened.
“Don’t you dare try to get up,” she said as she opened the door.
Although I couldn’t see her clearly, her voice was enough for me to know who she was. After a short and almost blind stare on my part, the bedroom light came on.
“Got to, I got a job I got to do tomorrow,” I said as I shaded my eyes with my hand.
“Tomorrow being Monday?” she asked as she walked to the edge of the bed.
I sighed softly and nodded my head. “Yeah.”
“I don’t understand how in the hell you do anything without a phone, and it’s Tuesday, so you’re a day late,” she said harshly as she stood in front of me with her hands on her hips.
“Fuck. Tuesday?” I asked as I glanced upward.
She sat down beside me and cleared her throat. “Technically, yes. It’s about 1:30 am. And Monday’s passed, so yeah. It’s Tuesday. You’ve been asleep on and off for twenty-four hours.”
“Swelling’s gone down quite a bit, and the stitches look pretty good,” she said as she closely inspected my face.
“Stitches? You stitched me?” I asked as I reached for my face.
She slapped my hand away from my face and shook her head. “Don’t you dare touch it, it’ll get infected. And, fuck no, I didn’t stitch you. You’d look like some pieced together sock monkey if I did. I got a nurse and a PA over here and they took care of you.”
I gazed down at the floor, swallowed heavily, and nodded my head. At the time, I only wanted to get somewhere where I felt safe. Coming to her house was inconsiderate on my part, undoubtedly unexpected on her part, and troublesome at the least.
“Look, I don’t want you thinking I’m some weirdo, ‘cause I’m not. You live two blocks from the busiest intersection in this city, and although I don’t live close to here, I ride by here a couple times a day…”
“Save it,” she interrupted.
I shook my head. “No, just hear me out.”
“Some of the fellas run in packs, and some hang out at the clubhouse and do whatever comes up. I’m a loner. I mean, I’m loyal to the MC, and I love the brotherhood, but I run alone. I just don’t trust people. Not really,” I paused, inhaled a shallow breath, and winced from the pain.
She shook her head and tilted it toward my mid-section. “He said you probably have cracked ribs. Based on the boot prints, anyway.”
“Feels like it,” I coughed.
“How many stitches?” I asked as I raised my hand toward my cheek.
Another slap of my hand and a sharp exhale reminded me of her obviously protective nature.
“Thirteen on the big cut, and I think four on the small one,” she said
as she leaned in front of me and inspected my wounds.
“You look a lot better than you did,” she said.
I shifted my eyes toward the floor. “I’ll pay for whatever it cost. You got friends in the medical field, huh?”
“Nope. I did my best to drag you in here, and gave up half way. I made a quick Craigslist ad in the personals. Got a lot of responses, too. It was the only thing I could think of that wouldn’t get the cops over here,” she said.
Still staring down at my bare toes, I nodded my head in shame. “Appreciate it.”
“So, as I was saying. No phone, and riding alone as always, I was up at Central and Rock. At Walt’s. Place was packed. I pulled in from the east, and there was one stall left. Some truck was just sitting there, and I sat there on my bike and waited for this prick to park, and he just sat there. So I parked and hopped off the bike. As I’m walking toward the bar, the driver gets out and calls me motherfucker for taking his spot. Ended up beating the shit out of his cowboy ass, but his buddies got the best of me. I’d have never made it to the hospital, and someone had already called the cops and an ambulance, so I left in a little bit of a hurry. I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “So, you’ve never said. Just what is it that you do? You know, for a living?”
I stared down at the floor and thought of the best way to explain my situation. After a short pause, I glanced in her direction. My eyes were swollen, I had a throbbing headache, and I was still a little dazed from the beating, but it was pretty easy to see that she was an extremely beautiful woman.
She looked different than she did when I met her. On that night, in her filthy sweats and half-drunk with her hair in a ponytail, there was no doubt she was an attractive woman. Tonight, however, she was even more so. With her hair down over her shoulders and her concerned brown eyes studying me, it was difficult not to stare at her. After a short time of enjoying her beauty, I once again shifted my eyes to the floor.
“Resolutions manager,” I said flatly.
“That didn’t sound very sincere. And what does that mean anyway?” she asked.
“I resolve things,” I said as I glanced toward her.
“Be more specific,” she said.
“Debt collector?” I said as I shrugged my shoulders. It came out with a hint of uncertainty, sounding more like a question than an answer.
She chuckled and turned her head in my direction. “What, you’re not sure?”
I glanced upward. “I’m sure. It’s just not something I have to describe very often.”
“Look, I’ve read enough books that I know club business isn’t up for discussion, so don’t worry about explaining anything if you don’t want to,” she said.
“What books?” I asked, almost bursting into laughter while I spoke.
“Lots of books. MC Romance books,” she responded.
I coughed a laugh and reached my aching ribs. “What the fuck is an MC Romance book?”
“It’s a love story about a member or members of a motorcycle club. Most of them are a series of books, each one about a different member of the MC. You know, one will be the president, the next the sergeant-at-arms, maybe a prospect, or the enforcer, or whatever. It’s a subgenre of books. They’re pretty popular,” she said.
“I’ll be fucking damned,” I said.
“You hungry?” she asked.
“Kind of,” I responded.
In actuality, I was starving, but I didn’t want to impose any more than I already had.
“Eggs, bacon and hash browns sound good?” she asked.
I did my best to smile and nodded my head.
“Be right back,” she said.
She stood from the edge of the bed and studied me with smiling eyes for a moment before turning away. There was no doubt in my mind that whoever ended up securing Sienna as a wife or girlfriend would have someone very special.
I just knew that person would never be me.
Chapter One Hundred Ninety-Eight
SIENNA
July 3rd, 2014
I sat outside the coffee shop sipping my coffee and reading as droves of people needing a caffeine fix came and went. A couple in their mid-twenties got out of an SUV and walked toward the entrance, pushing each other playfully as they made their way across the parking lot.
I watched until I was almost disgusted by their groping, giggling, and grabbing, and finally turned away. I took a drink of my coffee and propped my legs on the chair opposite of where I was seated, and tilted my Kindle away from the sun.
The coffee shop was one of my few escapes, and provided entertainment in the form of people watching, really good coffee, and a peaceful place to read. I had read many books from start to finish at the same location over the years, and my memories of the place were quite fond.
Once while parking my car, I got into an argument with another person attempting to park beside me at the same time, and was rescued by a patron of the establishment. The gesture of kindness led to sharing a cup of coffee, which prompted a date, and the date included sex.
He swore at the time he was single, lonely, and on the tail end of recovering from a case of heartbreak, but it all ended up being a lie. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are not your friend when you cheat on your wife, and a girl who is unemployed has nothing but time on her hands to figure such things out.
Since the incident with the married man, I had chosen to sit on the other side of the coffee shop, feeling as if the side I was sitting on that particular day was now tainted.
My house had been reminding me of Vince, and I hoped a trip to the coffee shop and a good book would clear my mind and allow me to make it through a day without me obsessing over thoughts of him and the possibilities of us becoming an us. It seemed, however, that everything I did or saw, including reading my dark erotic novel, reminded me of Vince.
In the process of reading my new book, no relief was provided, but I did have a few pretty vivid fantasies etched in my mind, all of which included Vince and me in a basement with handcuffs, a blowtorch, a Tanto blade (whatever that was) and a box of Frosted Flakes.
I had no reason or right to be obsessing over Vince, and in my lifetime had never done so over any man. Men, generally speaking, obsessed over me, making ridding myself of them entirely an almost impossible task. I was beginning to feel a strange guilt, and almost as if I was becoming exactly what it was I detested, a stalker.
Two chapters later, and I was writhing in my seat. In my mind, Vince was the Hero and I the heroine. The problem, for me, was that the author had done a remarkable job of painting the sex scenes in a vivid manner, and had left me to suffer.
Frustrated, horny, and for some odd reason wanting a bowl of cereal, I decided to call it a morning and go for a drive. I needed to clear my mind of Vince and try to become normal again.
As I picked up my coffee and turned off my Kindle, three motorcycles pulled in the lot and parked on the sidewalk by the entrance. I did my best to act uninterested, but as I walked toward my car, I checked over my shoulder.
One, a massive man almost seven feet tall, stood beside another slightly shorter, but rather muscular man. The second man, with a huge beard, much more full and long than Vince’s laughed as he walked, and the third man, considerably more handsome and with a darker skin tone than the other two, talked as they walked toward the entrance.
All three wore vests adorned with the patch of their MC.
Selected Sinners.
Here we go again…
Chapter One Hundred Ninety-Nine
VINCE
July 4th, 2014
Sunday nights were reserved for dinner at my mother’s home, and as much as I tried over the years to change it, I wasn’t able to do so. Disputing my mother’s practices, procedures, or rituals was something rather simple to do, but having her agree with me was another story. Although this particular day wasn’t a Sunday, it was a holiday, and one that my mother perceived as worthy of a family meal.
And arguing with her wasn’t an option.
“Eat your fried chicken, Stephen,” my mother said.
“I’m eating it as fast as I can, Mother,” I responded.
“You’re picking. I don’t like it when you pick. Pick, pick, pick. It’s all you’ve done since you got here. Did you eat with those boys before you came?” she asked.
“No. I told you, I came straight from home. The food’s good, I just…”
She reached below the table and handed Bradley another chicken bone. “You just what? Stephen Vincent Ames, you need to forget about that woman. She’s gone, and she’s not coming back. You deserve better, and it’s been what? Two years?”
“Don’t feed him chicken bones. It’ll kill him. And it’s been a year,” I said.
Bradley, an English bulldog, was my mother’s best friend. She talked to him as if he understood every word she said, and fed him whatever he would eat. According to my mother, Bradley was my younger brother, and she even held birthday parties for him, making him wear a hat and eat birthday cake every year.
“He’s a walking garbage disposal, he’ll be fine. And don’t think changing the subject will make me forget what we were talking about. She didn’t even want kids, Stephen, it was only a matter of time. And I haven’t seen her for two years, so it’s hard for me to remember exactly when you were divorced, but she left you long before you were divorced, I can tell you that, ” she said.
I inhaled a shallow breath and cleared my throat. “I’m not thinking about her.”
I scooped up a forkful of some strange corn, bean, and vegetable salad she had prepared and carefully lifted the substance to my mouth. Fried chicken on the Fourth of July was one of her rituals, and it generally included several side dishes, many of which she now obtained off of Pinterest. Some of the new recipes were great and some were nothing short of awful. I did my best to swallow the unidentifiable spicy mixture, but it was proving to be rather difficult. As I rolled it around in my mouth and reached for my glass of water, she raised her eyebrows and sighed.
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