by Harper Riley
At this very inopportune time, who comes racing over but Patricia, her mascara-caked eyes standing out of her head, her voice a nauseating shrill, “What happened! The wedding is ruined! People can’t be killed at a wedding – the wedding is ruined! Ruined!”
“Shut-up,” I say smoothly, “Clearly you don’t know my family. You grab this guy’s legs and I’ll grab his arms.”
She gawks at me, and, gesturing to Roger’s body, I snap, “Do it.”
So, the two of us carry Roger to the bridal party room, while Gavin and Pulse do the same to Antonio.
As we leave the bridal party room, I get face to face with Patricia.
“You wait until the wedding is over before you report this to the police. Or else.”
She responds with a quivering “Okay,” before she flees to the bathroom.
As we walk back into the dining room, Gav pats Pulse on the back.
“Really saved the day man.”
Pulse shrugs.
“Right, I’m still pissed about that yogurt though. Shit gave me food poisoning.”
Outside the entrance, Gavin grabs the microphone.
“Sorry about that folks. Had some problems with the entertainers, was supposed to be a murder mystery, but ended up being a murder mix-up, so just continue enjoying your meals as Torrie and I cut the cake.
As we stride toward the corner where our goliath of a cake stands, I squeeze Gavin’s hand.
“You really know how to give a convincing speech.”
We pause, listen as the murmur in the dining room slowly builds to conversation.
He shrugs, smiles.
“I’ve had a bit of practice.”
Now at the 10-layer pink and white frosted cake, Gavin cuts me an insanely big piece.
He dismisses my protests with the explanation that, “It’s for both of us.”
Once we’re back at our table, however, Gavin is only too happy to feed me pretty much all of it, until I’m so stuffed I can barely move.
“You know what that means,” he says with an evil smile after I flop back in my chair with a low moan.
“No, what?” I say.
I close my eyes, not really wanting to know the answer.
“That means that it’s time to dance!” he says.
A second later, music is pounding out on the dance floor and a disco ball is lowering itself overhead.
I shake my head, but now a voice is saying, “Ok, everyone, the bride and groom specifically said they wanted everyone out there for the first song, alright? So, you get on out there.”
I groan, look over at Jaws, who somehow has the microphone now, is the one responsible for this latest announcement.
“Oh noooo....” I moan.
“Oh yess...” Gavin says, rising and extending his hand.
I have no choice but to accept his hand, and clamber onto the dance floor, where Uptown Funk is playing again.
I start out bobbing noncommittally, as my cousins sway alongside me, Opa wags his cane to the tune, and Rhonda circles around, snapping photos when she isn’t grooving herself.
But soon the music is inhabiting me once more and I’m swaying along with Gav, shaking my hips like Hannah, throwing my hands up like Jaws and his girlfriend Tinsley, grinning like Pulse.
And soon the song and I are one, and I’m twirling through Piccolos and Rebel Saints alike and it’s all the same to me, they’re smiling and I’m smiling, they’re enjoying themselves and I’m enjoying myself, and we’re all just people having a ball.
And who would’ve thought that one song could be playing during the three greatest moments of my life and yet, here we are, Uptown Funk is booming on, and Gav is picking me up and spinning me, and I never want him to stop – not ever- because I’m here with my friends, family and the love of my life and I can never be happier, it can never get better than this – never.
Epilogue - Gavin
Three Months Later...
I’m losing her already. We’ve only been married three months, and already she’s pulling away.
I sit here on the bottom step of our staircase and wait for my wife, like her dog.
That’s what I’ve been as good as these past few days, trotting after her with my tongue hanging out, desperate for her to dole out an explanation, the reason why she won’t tell me where’s she’s been, what she’s been holding back from me.
Torrie’s been denying everything.
But not today. Today, she left the house again without explanation, still hasn’t replied to my texts, and I’m not going to take it anymore.
I sit here on my steps and stare at the door.
If things are falling apart, I want to hear it from her own lips.
The longer I sit here, however, the more restless I become.
Torrie left only 20 minutes ago, am I really about to sit here for another few hours if need be?
I glare at Jane as she trots up and tilts her head at me, at the man who’s doing a better job at being a dog than she is.
I stand up.
I know where to go.
My legs take me outside. I turn to give one last admiring look at our house. Our mansion, really. Its white walls are just as Torrie requested, white with rosewood doors, all the arches rounded Italian-style. Just as Torrie requested. Hell, our whole life is as Torrie requested: she has her own motorcycle now, we go on trips around the world every weekend – how could she be unhappy?
The answer comes back as an insidious voice in my head: Because of what you said to her a few weeks ago.
I stride to my bike, get on, start driving.
As mansions and acres of lawn flash past, I shake my head, dismiss the thought.
Just because I don’t want to have kids right away, doesn’t mean she’ll dump me on the spot.
If you’re so sure, the voice returns, then why are you heading where you’re heading?
Shut-up, I tell the voice, and it does. It burrows into a churning into my stomach, that only worsens when I pull up to Babylon, our old bar.
I stop in front of it, a weird twist of nostalgia in my chest as I stare at it. Where I met her. Where it all began. Where I have to go to find out.
Torrie wouldn’t have done... that, would she?
I stride in before the answer can come.
The place is just as I remembered: black floor and walls, a strange Christmas-tree shaped light fixture on the wall, a handful of hip, chill-looking people.
It’s fitting that it’s Jake behind the bar. He smiles as I come up.
“It’s been a while.”
I nod.
“Has Torrie been here lately?”
The easy smile on his face slides off.
“You’re not still on about that one, man, right? I told you...”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, just – has she?”
He won’t meet my gaze, says “Yes,” and I collapse onto a bar stool.
“When?” I ask.
“Yesterday,” he says.
“Two Jack Daniel’s,” I say.
“Ok,” he says.
The first one is a gulp, the second merely an inhalation.
“Another whiskey,” I tell him.
When he slides the cup of brown deliverance over to me, I don’t take it, I ask, “Did she leave with anyone?”
Jake shakes his head, turns away.
“I’m not doing this, man.”
I stand up.
“Please, this is important.”
I down the whiskey, but when I lower the glass, he’s over at the other end of the bar, talking to a big-bearded customer.
Already I’m feeling it, the effects of the whiskey. My gaze slides around this beloved hated bar once more, stops on the blonde sitting on the stool beside me. She’s eyeing me like she’d like to help take my mind off my Torrie problem.
I head to the other side of the bar, to Jake.
“Another Jack Daniel’s,” I say.
When he returns, I grab his hand, say, “Please man, it
’s important.”
He rips his hand away, and, before he turns away, says, “Yes. She left with a tall man.”
I slump back to my old seat, drink most of my drink.
“Can I have a taste?” the blonde says, now right beside me.
I shove out the glass. She puts in a straw and, eyes on me, sucks.
When she’s sucked her fill, I drink the rest in one gulp. Everything’s a bit blurry, but the blonde’s still beautiful, putting her hand on my chest, whispering in my ear, “What’s your name?”
“Torrie,” I say, pulling back and away, “Torrie.”
The ride home is a mist of Torrie leaving in the bar with a blur-faced man, and me, swerving and pressing into the gas and dodging cars and people and everything else at the last minute, almost hoping to hit them.
I shriek into the driveway just as she gets home too.
She’s happy, doesn’t expect it.
“Gav?” her lying whore smiles says.
I grab her.
“Tell me. Tell me.”
She’s scared. Good.
“You know?” her lying terrified lips ask.
“I went to the bar. I know.”
She’s scanning my face, her terror transforming into rage.
“And... you’re actually upset?”
She peers in closer.
“You’ve been... drinking?”
“I talked to Jake, okay,” I snarl, “I know.”
She’s shaking her head, snapping, “You’re not making any sense. Jake doesn’t know.”
I lean in close, get right up in her face.
“He saw you Torrie. He saw you leave with that guy.”
Now she’s smiling and I want to smack it off of her.
“Oh, my god, you mean the guy who put the letter on top of the bar for me because I wasn’t tall enough?”
I stare at her, don’t say anything.
“So clearly, you don’t know,” she says.
“You’re lying,” I say.
She stares at me, as if searching for a glint in my eye, the beginnings of a smirk, as if hoping to find that I’m joking.
Finally, she shakes her head, says, “Wow, you know what? I set this all up to make it a nice surprise. But now? I don’t think I’ll even tell you. Not today. You ruined it.”
The words burst out again – not really a belief as much as a fear, “You’re lying. You’re cheating on me.”
Torrie stalks off toward the door, stops at the front mat.
“No, even better Gavin, I’m pregnant with your child.”
The doors slams beside her. I gape at it. At its wooden planes, its bronze doorknob.
Torrie’s lying. She has to be, and yet... why would she lie about this?
I hurry in after her, but she’s already halfway up the stairs.
“Torrie?”
“Leave me alone Gav, you’re drunk and you’re mean.”
“Torrie, please,” I say, “I’m sorry, I... you’ve just been so distant these past days. I didn’t know what to think.”
On the second floor now, she stands at the railing, looking down at me.
“Fine, Gav, but... that? After all we’ve been through, you think that?”
I hang my head. My boots are filthy; I never noticed.
“I just can’t bear the thought of losing you...” I murmur.
She pauses and I rush up the stairs, take her in my arms, ask her, “Were you telling the truth? Is that what this has all been about – all this secrecy?”
Her lower lip trembling, finally she says, “Yes.”
I look at her, my wife and now, the mother of my child, I smile, exhale.
“Thank God.”
Drawing back, Torrie says slowly, “You mean it?”
I nod.
“When I told you I wasn’t ready, I was just afraid, Torrie. I am afraid. That I won’t be a good father, that I’m not much of a role model. Not yet. May never be.”
I sit down on the carpet, stare into the wall.
“You forget what I was doing less than a year ago.”
Torrie sits beside me, leans her head on my chest, “You forget what I was doing less than a year ago.”
I pat her head, shake mine.
“Going to the bar to hook up isn’t quite the same as running a sex trafficking business.”
Torrie giggles, turns to face me with a grin.
“You’re right. You’re an evil, evil man Mr. Gavin Pierson. Not fit to father children.”
I pat her head again, smile myself.
“Glad you agree with me on this one.”
Next thing I know, I’m being whacked in side of my head.
“So, you have a bad past Gav. So what? Lots of people do. You can’t control what happened to you, what you did before. All you can do is try to be the best person you can now. And if you teach even that to our children, they will be the richer for it. You are a kind, brave, giving, compassionate, capable man, Gav, and any child of yours will be better off for having you as their father.”
She burrows her head deeper into my chest, and I lean my head onto her.
The way she said it, I almost believe her.
I pat her again, and she kisses my cheek, says, “I was so afraid, that’s why I’ve kept it from you. And then when I brought up having kids and you dismissed it, I got scared, wanted to wait until I knew more to tell you.”
“How long have you been keeping it from me?” I ask.
“I’m two and a half months pregnant,” Torrie says, “So far the baby is healthy. Our little angel.”
“What?!” I ask, standing up.
Torrie leaps up.
“Were you just pretending to be supportive so you could tell me later to get rid of it?” she demands, eyes flashing.
“No, I just... you’ve been lying to me for two months?”
Torrie takes a paper out of her jacket pocket, shakes her head.
“I found out a couple of weeks ago, didn’t want to tell you until I knew more. I’m sorry.”
She hands me a paper, and I find all my arguments dissolving in my mouth.
It’s an ultrasound photo of the baby. Our baby. With a big alien head and little lump of body. Ours.
“Wow,” is all I can come up with to say.
Torrie takes the photo back with shaking hands.
“So... you’re okay with this?”
“Ok with this? Torrie, I’m going to be a father! I’m going to have a little baby with you!”
I race all the way down the hallway and back.
“We’ll have to outfit one of the storage rooms into a nursery,” I say, then race back down the hallway and back to Torrie, “Tell Jaws after a few more months, I can only imagine the gifts he and Tinsley are gonna unload on us... and Torrie?”
I stop in front of her. She’s beaming.
“Yes?” she says.
“Names! We have to start thinking of names.”
Torrie nods. “Yeah, but Gav?”
“Yeah?”
“We can, just... I thought, maybe, we could call her ‘Natasha.’ What do you think?”
I sit down on the carpet again, and Torrie sits down beside me.
“Gav?”
“I... I think...”
I turn to her, take her face in my hands.
“I think that’s perfect. Natasha, my baby girl.”
And then I pick Torrie up and sweep her to the bedroom. Our bedroom, our silk-sheeted, black on red, silk on velvet boudoir where I have made love to my wife, and made a baby with my wife, and will make love to my wife, will make more babies with my wife.
“Natasha,” I say, flinging Torrie onto the ruby top-cover.
“Natasha!” she declares, tossing a decorative velvet pillow at me.
I catch it, fling it back at her, and collapse on the bed beside her.
We lie there, all curled up in each other and these silky, silky sheets, and our incredible stupendous love, laughing at nothing, at how lucky we are, at the g
loriousness of life itself. Every once in a while, one of us will say it, the delicious refrain, the fusing of our past, present and future into a being, a creature, a child that will be our better in all ways.
We say it to ourselves, murmur it to the universe. “Natasha, Natasha.”
No Limits
I'm a single dad with more than enough to worry about.
The last thing I need is a girl like Tanzie Williams strapped to my bed.
She's a mess, but damn if she isn't the sexiest thing I've ever laid eyes on.
That, and she's the daughter of our rival's boss.
I knew this was going to get messy.
And I know it's going to get even messier.
See, when I look at Tanzie, I don't just see the trouble she's going to bring when her father finds out.
No, I see a glimpse into the future... our future.
She's got enough sass to silence a dozen bikers.
There's no taming this spitfire.
Good. That's just the way I like it.
I'm not just any other man.
When you're with me, there are no limits.
It's going to get dark, and it's going to get dirty.
And I'm going to make Tanzie mine.
If her father has a problem with that, he can come calling.
Chapter 1 - Grisham
Holy fuck.
There’s a doe-eyed girl on my bed. She’s bound and gagged; her clothes look like they’ve been torn apart by wolves. A smudge of dark oil lines her left cheek. Her long blonde hair has bits of leaves and dirt throughout.
It’s a strange juxtaposition, seeing this dirty waif on my white comforter, against the backdrop of a rich, dark wood headboard. This is my sanctuary, and this unexpected surprise stresses me out in a place that usually relaxes.
This girl is not what I was expecting when I walked in here. I thought I’d find Spree, my second, and Vice President of the Barking Angels Motorcycle Club.
Not that I’d ever tolerate finding Spree in my bedroom, but still, someone said they’d seen him heading back this way and I was ready to rip him to pieces for about sixteen different bullshit moves he’s made that he thinks I don’t know about.
At least now I know why he was back here. Let’s add kidnapping to the list, then. What the ever-loving fuck does this asshole think he’s doing?