Teddy was six foot two at least, and weighed probably 260 pounds. His beard was full and an easy four inches long, covering his entire face. His club name for years fit him well, Bear. In a recent drunken stupor, he had wrecked into a long line of bikes in front of a bar, and knocked all of them over, earning the new club name of Crash. He was a practical joker, uneducated, and as funny as any comedian. He was also trustworthy, and I gave him the same trust I gave my Marine brothers.
I nodded my head toward his mug of beer. “What’d that mug of beer cost?”
He gripped the handle and raised the glass into the air. “This big fucker? Six bucks. But god damn, look at this monster.”
I swallowed the bite of burger I was chewing on and chuckled as I studied the glass mug. The walls of it were an inch thick, and the bottom of it was two inches thick. The interior of the mug, if filled to the top, might have held twelve ounces of beer. On the outside it appeared to be filled with much more beer than it was.
“So, they make money by charging fools like you six bucks for twelve ounces of beer, but they deliver it in a cool mug,” I said, laughing as I spoke.
“Bein’ over there in that sand pit for the last ten years fucked up your sense of measure, Brother. You’re probably thinking in centimeters and meters instead of inches and feet,” he said with a nod of his head. “This fucker’s twice the size of that bottle.”
I glanced at Erik. Although something seemed to be bothering him, he forced a smile and leaned back into his seat. The most sensible of the group of men I was riding with, and the president of the motorcycle club, he was a psychiatrist by education, but lived off of his wealth and didn’t practice medicine. Considering his education, it came as no surprise his club name was Doc.
“Whether he’s measuring it in inches or centimeters doesn’t matter, Crash. The fucking mug is thick glass and holds very little liquid,” Erik stated.
Teddy narrowed his eyes and stared in disbelief. “What do you know about beer? Shit, Doc, you don’t even drink.”
Erik leaned forward and rested his tattooed forearm on the edge of the table. “I know if I took the radius of the interior of that mug in inches, squared the number, and then multiplied by 3.14, and then multiplied by the depth in inches, I’d have the volume. Then, smart ass, if I divided that by 2, I’d have the amount of ounces that cup held. Roughly speaking, that is.”
“Well, I ain’t a fuckin’ rocket scientist or a fuckin’ doctor, Brother. I’m a biker, a fighter, and I know a good burger and a cold god damned beer when I see ‘em. But I also know you two fuckers are full of shit,” Teddy said as he drank the remaining beer in his mug.
The waitress walked up to the side of the table and grinned as she pressed her hands into the sides of her hips. “Big burger, huh?”
Teddy nodded his head. “Sure as fuck is. Good son-of-a-bitch, too.”
“Can I get another beer?” I asked.
“Sure,” she responded. “Anything else?”
“Bring me another frosty mug,” Teddy said as he raised his empty mug in the air.
“Bring him a new mug, would you?” I asked.
She nodded her head and grinned. “Sure.”
“So, Doc and I was talkin’,” Teddy said as he reached for his burger. “You been gone for a bit…”
I shrugged my shoulders and stared.
“You and Doc decided I’ve been gone for a bit? And I thought you said you weren’t a rocket scientist,” I said sarcastically.
“No, god damn it, just listen. I wasn’t fuckin’ done talkin’. So Doc and me was talkin’, and we kinda decided we needed to have a talk, you know, like just bring you up to speed on…” He paused and leaned to the side, shifting his focus to Erik.
Seated beside Erik, I turned to face him. Still maintaining eye contact on Teddy, he narrowed his gaze and relaxed into his seat.
“What?” Teddy snapped as he tossed his hands in the air. “I don’t know what to tell him.”
The waitress slid a mug and a bottle of beer onto the table. “Anything else?”
“The check,” I said as I raised my index finger.
She nodded her head. “Be right back.”
“First things first,” I said as I poured my beer into Teddy’s empty mug.
The mug held the twelve ounces of beer, and had an inch to spare. It looked identical to the mug of beer he was delivered.
He stared at the mug, shifted his eyes to his new mug, and slid the new mug beside the one I had just filled. They were identical. He narrowed his eyes and stared at the two mugs.
“How big of bottle is that?” he asked.
I pointed at the label and held it between us. “Twelve ounces.”
“No wonder this fucker’s got cheap burgers,” he murmured.
As the waitress placed the check on the table, a guy seated three booths down from where we were seated raised his hand in the air and whistled a loud shrill whistle to get her attention. Still standing at the end of our table, she glanced in his direction and turned to face our table again, rolling her eyes as she faced us.
He whistled again, this time louder.
I pushed myself out of the booth and turned toward the whistler. As his eyes met mine, he slumped into his seat.
I nodded my head toward Teddy. “You can finish your story when I get back.”
“Stay here,” I told the waitress as I stood.
“Oh shit,” I heard Teddy say as I walked away.
I walked to the table, glanced at the two men who were seated across from each other, and fixed my eyes on the one who was whistling. Both were in their mid-twenties, looked like former high school jocks, and were dressed in hockey jerseys.
“You lose your dog?” I asked as I folded my arms in front of my chest.
“I was just, I was trying to just…” he stammered.
I raised my hand in the air to stop him from continuing. I wasn’t interested in hearing whatever he had to say.
“She’s a woman, not a dog. Do you understand me?” I asked.
He nodded his head.
“Do you fucking understand me?” I asked through my teeth.
“Yes, Sir,” he responded with a nod of his head.
I uncrossed my arms and flexed my chest. “That’s better. Now, when she comes to help you, if she comes to help you, apologize. And don’t do it again. It’s rude, and it makes you look like an asshole. In the future, if you want the waitress, wave at her and smile. Understood?”
“Yes, Sir,” he said.
I turned, walked back to the table where we were seated, and sat down.
As I shifted my eyes toward the waitress, I tilted my head toward the whistler. “He wants to apologize.”
“Thank you,” she said with a grin.
As she walked away, I glanced at Teddy. “You were saying?”
Teddy lifted his mug of beer and spoke over the top of the glass. “Doc?”
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked, shifting my eyes back and forth between them.
“I’m going to cut right to it,” Erik said. “Your wife. She’s been spending a lot of time with that friend of yours, Steve.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “He’s a friend. Hell, he’s my best friend. I’m sure he was just comforting her while I was gone.”
Teddy lowered his mug, fixed his eyes on mine, and raised his eyebrows. I turned toward Erik. He shifted his eyes to the table, stared for a moment, and met my gaze.
“You need to have a talk with her,” he said.
As much as I didn’t want it to, my heart hurt. Regardless of what comfort she had found in Steve while I was away, I was sure we could get through it with a little conversation. What most men would perceive as inappropriate I would probably accept. I was away for a little more than a decade, and to think my wife wouldn’t seek comfort from someone would be foolish.
“I’ll do that,” I said as I reached for my wallet.
I opened the bill folder only to find the ticket had been pa
id. A cash receipt sat in the folder.
“I was going to pay for this,” I said.
Teddy nodded his head toward me. “Half a dozen bullet holes and a pound of steel in your ass? I think you already did.”
“I appreciate it,” I said with a nod.
“Appreciate what you done,” he said. “Just have that talk with your wife.”
I lifted my beer and held it between us. He lifted his half-empty mug and clanked the glass against mine.
“As soon as we’re done here,” I said.
I wanted their opinions to be wrong, but if the war taught me one thing, it taught me to expect the unexpected.
But in this particular circumstance, I wasn’t prepared for the unexpected.
Chapter Two Hundred Forty-Eight
Fall 2012, Wichita, Kansas, USA
I sat across the street from the coffee shop and watched as Suzanne pulled in, walked inside, and met Steve with a hug. After a few minutes of sitting and drinking coffee, they stood, hugged again, and went their separate ways.
Certainly nothing that would have alarmed me in the past, but considering the input from my brothers in the MC, I decided their meeting warranted a slightly more in-depth investigation. Still sitting in the adjacent parking lot on my motorcycle, I pulled my cell phone out and dialed Suzanne’s number.
“Hey, Babe, where are you?” I asked.
“On my way home,” she responded.
“I just stopped at the gas station. Want to get a coffee?” I asked.
“Actually, I’m pulling into the drive now, I’d have to turn around,” she said.
That’s a lie, you’re two miles from the house.
“Alright, I’ll be there in a bit. What’s for dinner?” I asked.
“I was going to make burgers,” she said.
“Sounds good, see you in a bit,” I said.
“Okay, love you,” she said.
“Love you, too,” I said.
I hung up the phone, pushed it into my pocket, and sat on the seat of my bike staring blankly toward the western sky. As the late fall sun came to a rest along the horizon, I started my bike and took the short ride home.
They were the longest two miles of my life.
Chapter Two Hundred Forty-Nine
Fall 2012, Wichita, Kansas, USA
I wiped my hands on my napkin, reached for my glass of tea, and took a slow drink as I studied her. I didn’t want to believe anything had changed while I was away, and I still hoped it had not, but I was prepared to find out. I needed to have her full attention when I spoke to her, so my manner of questioning her needed to be more formal than informal.
“Suzanne, we need to talk,” I said.
“Okay,” she said as she looked up from her plate.
I pressed my elbows onto the table and rested my chin in my hands. “So, while I was gone, did you and Steve ever become more than friends?”
Her eyes shifted downward slightly. “No.”
Bad question. Lead her into it Jacob, just like an interrogation.
“Explain your most intimate encounter with Steve,” I said.
“What? Why?” she asked.
“Some of the guys I ride with said they’ve been seeing you two together a lot,” I said flatly.
“We’re friends,” she responded.
I nodded my head. “I realize that. Entertain me. Explain your most intimate encounter with him.”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me this,” she said.
“Well, I am,” I responded.
“Our most intimate encounter,” she said.
“Well, you know, we met for coffee, and we met for dinner, just to talk while you were gone. He comforted me, Alec. He’s a great friend to us both. Uhhm, I’d say,” she paused, and her eyes immediately darted to my left side and slightly upward.
“Well, we hugged on several occasions, and he kissed me several times, but not kissed me, kissed me. You know, on the cheek,” she said.
She’s lying.
“What did he typically wear?” I asked.
“Wear?” she asked.
“Yes. What did he wear? You know, typically.” I asked.
“That’s a weird question,” she said.
Her eyes shifted to my right and upward. “Normally he wore his scrubs, but sometimes he wore jeans and a tee shirt. Mostly his boots. I can’t believe you’re asking me this.”
Well, that was truthful, at least.
I didn’t know to what degree they had been intimate, or if they even had, but I did know she was lying about their intimacy. To what degree she was lying would be hard to tell. As I sat and studied the woman I absolutely adored, my blood pressure increased with each tick of the second hand on my watch.
“He ever stick his cock in your mouth?” I asked.
She glared at me and her mouth went agape. “I can’t believe you asked me that.”
“And I’m not surprised you didn’t answer,” I said as I stood.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked as she stood and crossed her arms in front of her chest.
“You lied to me,” I said.
“What? Lied to you? I can’t believe…” she began.
“Suzanne, you know that I’ve been trained to interrogate people, right? You realize I can tell when you lie? When I asked what was your most intimate encounter, you made up everything you said. You lied. Now, I’ll ask you one more time, have you ever had his fucking cock in your mouth?” I asked in what she had always described as my mean voice.
And she began to cry.
“Please don’t do anything to him,” she said as she began to sob.
“God fucking damn. Did you fuck him?” I asked.
Her eyes fell to the floor. “Please, don’t do anything to him.”
I couldn’t believe it. I could almost dismiss it if she had fucked some random stranger one night in a hotel while I was gone. But to fuck my best friend, and while I was fighting for the same freedoms that let her be the independent woman that she was…
As my head began to spin and my mind immediately went to violence as a means of resolve, I mentally admitted I had been gone for twelve years on and off, and I fully understood the time I was away had to be extremely tough on her. I needed to be understanding of the difficulties she went through, not quick to condemn or react.
“Alright, listen. Whatever happened, happened. It’s over. Never again. We can get through this. We can,” I said, more in an effort to reassure myself than to reassure her.
I folded my arms in front of my chest and gazed down at the floor. As she continued to cry, I provided no comfort, only serious thought on the matter before us. As I shifted my eyes up toward her face, I had very little sympathy for how she felt. I was sure I felt worse, for many reasons.
“Do you love me?” I asked.
“With all my heart,” she blubbered.
“Well, that’s all we need. We’ll make this work. I’ll talk to him…”
“Don’t hurt him,” she begged.
“I’ll talk to him, that’s all. But you are done seeing him, meeting with him, everything,” I said sternly.
“Do you understand me?” I asked.
She nodded her head.
I inhaled a deep breath and cocked one eyebrow.
She continued to sob. “Yes…Yes, I…I understand.”
“No dinner, no coffee, no secret meetings, no nothing,” I said.
“Okay,” she murmured.
That night, as I stared up at the ceiling of our bedroom, I wondered just how separated from me she had become in the twelve years I was at war. Regardless, I convinced myself we could get through it. Because in the end, I still loved her.
And love was the most powerful thing in my arsenal.
Chapter Two Hundred Fifty
Fall 2012, Wichita, Kansas, USA
Two weeks after my discussion with Suzanne, she called me stating she was going to be late from work, and explained that she was on her way to get somet
hing to eat. As we spoke on the phone, I recognized the music in the background as being Steve’s favorite indie rock artist, The Weeks. Knowing Suzanne’s car didn’t have satellite radio, and that local stations didn’t play that particular artist, I questioned her as to whether or not she was with Steve at the time.
An oh my God, he knows we’re together whisper followed, and that was all it took.
I regretted being as considerate as I had been regarding her relationship with Steve. I felt used, cheated, betrayed, and alone. After completely losing my composure in the telephone conversation, I warned her to never come back to the house we had lived in.
After gathering my weapon, sat loading the magazines with bullets. With each round of ammunition, my mind went to thoughts of each of them, and what I felt they had taken from me.
I pressed another round into the half-filled magazine.
This one is for the day I carried you from the treehouse with the broken arm.
With my jaw clenched and my mind wandering to thoughts of what I perceived to be justice, I pressed another round into the magazine.
This one is for believing you were the woman I could spend the rest of my life with.
I grabbed another bullet from the box.
For allowing you to call me a true brother. You’re no brother of mine.
And another.
Teaching you something I truly loved, how to ride a motorcycle. I’ll make sure you’ll never ride another.
And another.
For sharing something as sacred to me as sex with you.
I grabbed another round and pressed against the bullet in the top of the magazine. Incapable of pressing the bullet into the device, I stared down at the rifle magazine. It was clearly completely full.
But I had many more reasons for detesting each of them for deceiving me.
Armed with my rifle, ammunition, knife, and a carton of cigarettes, I drove to his home and parked in the street across from his residence. I sat and blankly stared at her car as my level of anger slowly rose to a point of being unhealthy.
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