A Ride or Die Kind of Love

by Chelsea Camaron

  “Get inside,” Luke barked to the two guys out front. Without hesitation, they went inside. I found myself shoved up against the front of the building. Luke’s hands were on either side of my head on the wall, casing me in. “What the fuck are you doing?” he asked in a surprisingly calm voice. I couldn’t speak. His eyes glared deep into mine looking for an answer. “Answer me,” he snapped, no longer in a calm manner.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, not sure what was a right answer. I’m not sure why, but just like at my house the sound of his rough, dominating voice had me wanting to take him right there.

  “You don’t know? You trying to make an ass out of me, Dallas? You are here with me and only me. I will not tolerate you hanging all over another man in my presence. Do you understand?”

  “I wasn’t hanging on...” Luke slapped the wall beside my head, cutting me off mid-sentence and making me jump.

  “Yes, or no?” he growled. I could tell that this was not the Luke that I had seen in the bedroom. That Luke was domineering, but in a sexual way. This one looked like he could rip me to pieces with his bare hands.

  I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat and replied with a simple, barely audible, “Yes.” Without another word, Luke walked back inside, leaving me alone. Not sure what to do, I turned and started walking down the road.

  Chapter 7

  I could not face the humiliation of going back inside. Even though no one said anything, I knew everyone in the building had watched the scene unfold. I knew I could not walk down the interstate, so I grabbed my cell from my back pocket and dialed the only person I knew in Hattiesburg that would come get me. Lindsey’s phone rang only once when she picked up with her normal cheery greeting.

  “Hey, Dallas! What can I do for you?”

  Somehow, I found my voice and was surprised to find it working without a hint of despair. “I need you to come pick me up from Blackwell Grocery off of Evelyn Gandy Parkway.”

  “Um, okay. Just so happens, I am in Petal. I should be there in about ten minutes. Is everything okay?” I ended the call without answering her and placed my phone back in my pocket. I would have to concoct some story to tell Lindsey as to why I was sitting on the curb at a run-down grocery store, on a Sunday afternoon. If she knew what really happened, she may take that as a sign of weakness and that was the last thing I wanted.

  As promised, Lindsey’s shiny white car pulled into the parking lot less than ten minutes later. “I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to go home,” I said, never looking her in the eye. I had slouched down in my seat, staring out the window, silently hoping that she would just let it be. I knew that she would. She was not the type to pry or ask too many questions. I suddenly remembered that Luke had the code to get in the gate at my house. “Do you mind if I come to your house for a little while?” I blurted to Lindsey without thinking.

  “Of course not,” she responded. I felt like a complete fool, an idiot. It was degrading, lowering myself to ask for assistance from someone who made less in a month than I did in a day. Here I was, CEO of one of the largest real estate companies in the south, calling on a girl with an associate’s degree from a junior college to assist me with my personal life. She was sure to take this as a sign of distress and lack of confidence, which would lead to her leaking my story to a group of middle class workers at a Thursday night Bunco party. She would eventually lose respect for me in the office, causing me to let her go and hire a new assistant. By that time, she will have gone to the media hoping to get some sort of attention by letting everyone in on the secret life of the most eligible millionaire bachelorette, Dallas Knox. My private life would be aired like dirty laundry for the entire world to see.

  I would eventually lose clients causing my business to fold and once I dipped into my savings and CD’s, my interest would go down, and by the time I was forty I would be broke and without a job living in a trailer with thirty-five cats. The thought was so revolting; I started to tell Lindsey to just take me home. I would rather face the wrath of Luke and his goon squad than be known for the woman who once had it all, but lost it after her assistant sold her out. I wanted to say those things, but I couldn’t. I needed Lindsey. I needed a friend and of all the people I had come in contact with over the years, it was her that I was closest to. I wanted someone I could confide in and share all my secrets with. It was a little overwhelming at times being me and trying to keep an all business persona when deep down all I wanted was to be just like everyone else.

  Luke had turned into a complete failure and my melancholy mood that his actions had put me in made me feel extremely vulnerable. It was time to let go of the past and try to become a new person. A better person. I looked over at Lindsey as if seeing her for the first time. Her long hair was so dark that it was almost black and her tanned skin was flawless. She didn’t wear a hint of makeup, and didn’t need to. She seemed innocent, yet full of life. She wore khaki shorts and a plain white shirt. Even sitting down, I could tell that it complimented her curvy figure. It was a requirement of mine for her to dress in business attire for work. I even gave her a bonus when she started, just so she could look the way I expected her to.

  Seeing her now, dressed down in casual clothes with no makeup on, I almost felt as if we were friends, maybe coming back from a movie or a shopping trip together. My heart smiled at the thought, but my body responded by rolling my eyes at such a silly daydream. I was twenty-six years old and acting like I was ten again. Next thing I knew, we would be skipping along together with our hair in pigtails singing Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.

  “Well, this is awkward,” Lindsey said, pulling me from the comfort of my own thoughts and back to the situation at hand.

  “Yeah, I guess it is. Sorry to inconvenience you,” I said looking down at my feet embarrassed. This was a first.

  “Not this,” she said, motioning with her finger between the two of us. “This.” I looked up to see her pointing out the windshield. It seemed that we had a front row seat to an all-out dog orgy happening in the middle of the driveway before us. I had not even realized the car had stopped, or that we had turned into a driveway that I assumed led to her house. Lindsey jumped out of the car, shooing the dogs out of the way. I laughed at the sight of her, kicking the air around the dogs, hoping to scare them out of their sexual craze. After about two minutes of swearing and kicking and shooing, the dogs broke up and decided to take their business elsewhere, but not before shooting Lindsey a look that had her giving them the finger in retaliation, which just made me laugh harder.

  “Fucking dogs. You would think that they could find somewhere else to fornicate, other than my driveway,” Lindsey mumbled, mostly to herself, when she got back in the car.

  “Who do they belong to?” I asked, still laughing.

  “Me. I got them from a Wal-Mart parking lot salesman for ten dollars. They are just mutts but they let me know when someone is coming over. There is a bitch in heat somewhere, so that’s all they have been studying for the past few days. Just like a damn man.” I laughed. Lindsey was funny, although I knew she was not trying to be.

  “Well, welcome to my Ponderosa,” Lindsey said, putting the car in park and getting out.

  Lindsey’s house was a small wooden framed cottage that was painted a light blue. A white picket fence went around the front of the house and opened into a small garden. We walked up the steps onto the porch that housed two white rocking chairs. The porch went down the side of the house and across the front. The railing was white and looked freshly painted. I had always imagined Lindsey living in an apartment somewhere, so it was surprising to see how much pride she took in the small cottage. Now that I had seen it, I could not imagine her living anywhere else. She opened the front door, which I noted was not locked and led me inside the living room. “Make yourself at home,” she said, throwing her purse on a turquoise couch and walking out of the room.

  The walls were covered in canvas paintings, each with an LI inscribed on the bott
om. Lindsey was quite the artist. There were pictures of various insects, animals, trees, flowers and even a couple of portraits of some woman. The old hardwood floors were covered in worn rugs and all of the furniture looked distressed, but it made the room look airy and bright. There was no television in the room, but an easel with a half- finished canvas painting stood in the corner next to a shelf full of paints and brushes. I looked through the doorway that Lindsey went through and could see all the way to the kitchen.

  With my curiosity getting the best of me, I walked through a door that led to a large bedroom that stretched the width of the house. There was a large four post bed. It was white and looked like it had once been a canopy bed, but was now draped in a mossy green net that was blowing in the breeze coming from the open windows in the room. It looked like something out of a dream. Large, white, overstuffed pillows were piled high on the matching white down comforter and I could see a slight dip in the middle of the bed letting me know that the mattresses were old and worn. Just like the living room, the walls here were also covered in paintings, but all of streams, rivers, woods and cottages similar to the one she lived in. An old dresser covered in perfumes and framed pictures sat across from the bed.

  “I’m kind of a do-it-yourselfer,” Lindsey announced from the doorway.

  “I think it’s amazing,” I said truthfully.

  “When I started working for you, I lucked up and found this place for rent really cheap. The outside was overgrown and the inside was covered in dust, but the structure was good, and the owner told me I could paint the furniture if I wanted. I have been here over two years and I have never paid full price for my rent. He always finds a way to knock something off, because I have fixed or updated something,” she said smiling.

  “Have you thought about buying it?” I asked.

  “Maybe. Wanna see the rest?” she asked turning and leading me out of the room and into another. I knew she was avoiding the topic, but I didn’t mind. I was pretty discreet myself. Something else we had in common. “This is my guest bedroom, but I use it as an office. Whoever lived here before must have too, because I didn’t have to buy anything but a new desk chair,” she said, spinning the chair around and taking a seat. The desk was painted a bright yellow, but didn’t look gaudy or tacky in the least. It went well with the room that was painted an off white color with only a few large paintings of flowers on the walls. A small sofa sat in front of a large stone fireplace and the walls around it were lined with books.

  “I love to read. During the winter, I spend almost all of my time in here reading,” Lindsey said, abandoning her seat to run her fingers along the books on the shelf, just as I had done many of times in my own library.

  “I do, too,” I said, liking the fact that my employee and potential friend loved reading as much as I did. We walked into the kitchen, which just like the desk, was painted a bright yellow. The cabinets were white, as were the appliances, and the small breakfast area had a white wooden table for two. There were so many windows that there wasn’t very much room for paintings, but Lindsey had still managed to squeeze in a few here and there.

  “Would you like something to drink?” Lindsey asked. “I have water and milk.”

  “Water would be great. Thank you,” I said, taking a seat at the breakfast table. Lindsey handed me a bottle of water and sat across from me.

  “So, you gonna tell me what’s going on?” Lindsey asked. I had never seen her relaxed. Nor, had I ever heard her speak so bluntly. I liked it. I had an overwhelming urge to tell her everything. So, I did. From the first moment I saw Luke, to the moment I walked away from the bar. I lay the last twenty-four hours of my life out on the table, like an open book. Lindsey sat quietly, listening intently to everything I had to say. When I was finished, I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. I sat there a minute, delighting in the fact that I had just opened up to someone, even though the last one I had trusted, only hours ago, had already betrayed me. I was ready to hear Lindsey’s feedback, her advice. I wanted her to get mad and volunteer to drive me back to the bar so that we could team up and beat the shit out of Luke. Maybe even vandalize his motorcycle. I looked at her expectantly, ready for the wrath.

  “So, who gave me the day off, you or Luke?” Lindsey asked her face wrinkled up in confusion. I was speechless. Dallas Knox, one of so many words, was speechless once again. “Just kidding,” Lindsey said, laughing and looking very pleased with herself. I laughed along with her, although I didn’t find the comment as humorous as she did. “Well, it sounds to me like you have it bad for this incredibly hot guy,” she said, laughter subsiding.

  “I had it bad. Not anymore. I am totally over him. I could care less if I never see his face again,” I said, nodding my head in agreement with myself.

  “Liar,” Lindsey retorted. Before I could respond, she was speaking. “You like him. And I’m not fully convinced that you aren’t in love with him. Either way, this guy has had a major effect on you. Trust me, it’s a good effect. No offense,” she said, holding her hands up as if to surrender. “Now, your problem is that- Wait, can I speak bluntly and like, not lose my job?” she asked.

  I motioned to her with my hand, “By all means, you have the floor.” I knew to prepare myself for the bitter truth of what a bitch I was. I had heard it before, but it would do me some good to hear it again.

  “Good. Anyways, your problem is that you live in a bubble. In your bubble, everything has to be perfect and just as Dallas sees it. That’s fine when you are at work, running a multi-million dollar company. But, when you step into the real world, you have to learn to stand out of the spotlight a little. You follow me?” Lindsey asked.

  “I follow you, but I don’t live in a bubble, Lindsey. I just simply know what I want and what I deserve,” I responded, not at all offended by what she was saying.

  “You’re a bitch,” Lindsey blurted out. She was now standing up. The shock of what she had just said, apparent on her face. “I’m sorry,” she squeaked, her hands coming to her mouth.

  I laughed, “I know that, Lindsey. I was hoping that you would be a little more creative.”

  “You have no idea how long I have wanted to say that,” she said laughing. I joined in. It was nice to laugh, even if it was at my own expense. “Ok, I’m sorry. Really. I shouldn’t have said that. Okay. Back to Luke, you are lucky. He could have done what he did in front of everyone. Now that would have been embarrassing,” Lindsey said, helping herself to the candy dish sitting on the counter.

  “You speak as if from experience,” I said, eyeing her curiously. Surely Lindsey wasn’t an executive assistant by day, and a biker chick by night.

  “No, it has never happened to me, but I have seen it. My ex-fiancé is in a bike club. I was there with him through the whole prospect period; a hundred and seventy-six days to be exact,” she said. I could tell she was trying come across indifferent, but I saw the pain behind her smile.

  “What happened between y’all?” I asked.

  “He got patched in. Women were throwing themselves at him, just for a chance to ride with the club. He loved that life much more than he loved me. I was tired of the late night phone calls saying he wasn’t going to make it home. Then, he got to where he wouldn’t even call. I had enough and ended it. He was relieved. I knew it was what he wanted. He had been trying to push me away for months. That was before I moved here,” she responded, busying herself in the kitchen, so that she wouldn’t have to face me.

  “What did you mean earlier when you said it could have been worse?” I asked, feeling a change of subject was in order.

  “Well, in that world, it isn’t about you. Luke is the president, right?” she asked, looking at me for an answer.

  “I think so,” I responded unsure.

  “You think so, great. Well if he is, then he sets an example for everyone else. Now, how do you think it made him look to have the woman he brought with him, chatting up another man?” I looked at her with an imp
assive face. I tried to think about what I had done, but I saw no wrong in it.

  “It wasn’t as bad as what he was doing,” I responded. “Bikers hug and kiss their family. By family, I mean the people who ride with them, fellow club members, other club members. It’s a way of communication for them.”

  I just stared at her, not sure what she wanted me to say. “Ok, think of it like this, in the real estate world, you are the queen, the Alpha and Omega, top of the line. Nobody does real estate as well as you. In the bike world, that’s Luke. You know how you tend to take three hour lunch breaks? Sometimes it’s because you have business to attend to, sometimes you just want to go to 306 Front Street and eat, knowing good and damn well it will take an extra thirty minutes just to get through traffic. My point is that you can do that because you are the boss. But, what if I did that? What if your clients had to wait because your employee wanted to take a three hour lunch break? How would that make you look?”

  She had me. I got it. I would have fired her on the spot if she had pulled some of the stunts that I pulled on a regular basis. I could do it because I was the boss. She did as I told her, that’s how the business worked. Apparently, that was how Luke worked, too. Except, I was the one being told what to do.

  “Hey, you still with me?” Lindsey asked, waving her hand in front of my face.