Immediately after meeting George, he stepped into my life as a father of sorts. Protecting me from Southern California’s undesirables seemed to be his calling. Upon hiring his male employees, he advised them of his hands-off policy when it came to me. If a patron acted overly friendly, George was at my table in an instant, squashing their advancements completely. Luckily, his clientele were regulars. Therefore, everyone knew his position on all things Abby related.
I gestured to the empty seat across from me. “Sit down. It makes me nervous when you loom over me like that.”
He sat across from me, resting his massive forearms on the edge of the table. He cocked an eyebrow. “Did you run this morning?”
I nodded. “Five miles.”
His mouth twisted into a smirk. “So, we’ve got a big problem.”
“You know me all too well.” My gaze fell to the table top. “There was this guy at the meeting. He was really nice. We went to Borrego and I caught a rattlesnake.”
I looked up, hoping I’d satisfied his curiosity.
In complete contrast of my optimistic view, he coughed out a laugh. “Were you planning on stopping there, or are you going to continue with the rest of the story?”
“That’s pretty much it,” I lied. “We rode out there, caught a rattlesnake, and then we rode back to the meeting. After that, I came home.”
“I know you didn’t ride your bicycle to the desert.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Motorcycle?”
I nodded.
“Number thirty-whatever?” he asked.
“Two,” I said. “It was number thirty-two.”
“A biker. You’re contemplating a real biker?” He crossed his arms and peered down his nose at me. “What makes him special?”
“I don’t know.”
It was true. I didn’t know. He possessed the external qualities I liked in men, but beyond that I knew very little about him. I feared, however, that it was what I didn’t know that drew me to him. I wanted to find out what the root of his fear was. In time, I wanted to fix it.
“What’s his…” He twisted his mouth to the side, seeming uncertain of how to continue. “Condition?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “He didn’t want to talk about it. We were discussing faith in the higher power, and he didn’t want to talk about that, either. But, he was really nice. I mean, we rode to Borrego Springs and back, and he never hit on me. Not once. And, he had no idea who I was, so that’s a plus.”
His eyes widened a little. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” I assured him. “He doesn’t believe in social media. He thinks it’s dumb.”
“So, what’s your plan?” he asked.
I scrunched my nose and shrugged one shoulder. “Eat two more pancakes and see what I think?”
“Bring him in here,” he said.
It sounded like more of a demand than a recommendation. Mentally, my head shook vigorously. Outwardly, I tried to remain calm and seem unaffected by his request.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” I said, using caution to keep my tone emotionless. “Not yet.”
“Bring him in here.” He slid out of the booth and stood. “I want to meet him.”
I had my doubts Porter would show up to the next meeting. He lacked interest in sharing with the group. I suspected his attendance was mandated by his insurance company, and not driven by his desire.
“Let me see if he even shows up to the next meeting.” I offered a smile. “We’ll go from there.”
“Bring him in here.” He folded his arms over his chest. He did it when he was frustrated, and by my count, had already done it twice since sitting down. “That’s three times, if you’re keeping count.”
I gave him an innocent look. “Three times?”
“I said bring him in here three times.” He unfolded his arms and tugged against his apron. “Four, including this one.”
I mouthed the words I’m sorry. “If he comes back, I’ll see what I can do.”
“A fucking biker,” he murmured as he walked away.
The instant George was gone, Lawson set my plate in front of me. After George’s interrogation I expected to be drawn to the steaming hot plate of goodness like a great white shark to a bleeding surfer. Instead, I looked at the Frisbee-sized discs of fried batter with disgust in my eyes. According to my lack of appetite, I wasn’t stuck in the middle any longer. My decision was made.
Without so much as a moment’s thought I pulled my phone from my purse. I scrolled through my contacts and found Porter’s name. When I started to type him a text message, I noticed I had received one that I wasn’t aware of. It was an hour and a half old, and it was from Porter.
I opened it.
Ghost Porter-Porter: Have time to talk?
I was instantly overcome with the same giddy excitement that filled me when Trent Rothchild asked me to senior prom. I fidgeted in my seat to thoughts of riding on Porter’s motorcycle, and of wrapping my arms around his muscular torso. I closed my eyes and tried to resurrect his scent but fell short, relying solely on a mental image of his handsome face and muscular physique as fuel to make me squirm.
I wondered if he had questions about the meeting, about cancer, or if his interests were more along a personal level. Hoping his concerns were minimal and his interest in me was vast, I opened my eyes and typed a quick response.
I’m eating a late breakfast. Other than that, I’m free all day. What did you have in mind?
Instantaneously, my phone beeped. I glanced at the illuminated screen.
Ghost Porter-Porter: Want to meet for lunch?
My heart stammered. Short of a day dream, I’d shared no intimate moments with Porter. Nonetheless, I felt I was battling a premature teen crush.
I searched the diner and found George standing fifty feet away, talking to a young couple I didn’t recognize. There’d be plenty of opportunities for him to meet Porter whenever I felt it was necessary. To do so now would have been awkward. When he looked up I flashed him a quick grin, feeling slightly guilty for not wanting to bring Porter to the diner.
With my phone hidden in my lap, I typed my response.
I’d love to. How does sushi sound?
Upon reading his sounds great response, an involuntary squeal shot from my lungs. Embarrassed, I pushed the plate of cold pancakes to the far side of the table and dropped my phone in my purse, hoping I was the only one who heard the audible outcry.
Instead of waiting for my bill, I tossed an ample amount of cash on the table and jumped from my seat.
“Love you, George,” I shouted openly.
“Love you, too, Abby,” he responded. “See you in a few hours.”
“I won’t be in for lunch.” I lengthened my stride, all but scurrying toward the door. “I’ve got some things to do.”
“Bringing him in?” he asked.
He knew me all too well. With my eyes fixed on the exit, I raised my hand in the air and gave a playful wave. “Bye, George.”
“Bringing him in?!” he shouted from behind me.
I pushed the door open and paused. “Love you, George.”
“Fucking biker,” he muttered.
88
GHOST
The waitress set a slender plate of rice-wrapped raw fish in front of me. I’d seen sushi before, but I’d never planned on eating it. Now that I didn’t have a choice, I wasn’t sure how in the fuck I was going to pick it up.
I nonchalantly searched the table for utensils and found none. In unrolling my napkin, two ornately painted white sticks fell onto the table and bounced a few times before they came to a rest between Abby and me. I stared at them as if they were the cause of a ten-car collision on the five.
Unless I planned to use them as miniature spears, I was going to go hungry. My chopstick skills were equal to my ability to walk a tightrope.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Abby asked as I fumbled to pick up the sticks. “I’m famished.”
I grinned in acknowledgement and th
en shifted my eyes to my food. I had my doubts I’d be able to pick up anything, short of a few stares and a laugh or two. I searched the restaurant. Two dozen adults and half a dozen children used their chopsticks as an extension of their fingers, eating their food with ease. For them, it seemed like a simple task.
In my attempt to hold the slippery sticks, I looked like a drunken carnival clown trying to juggle pencils. If I continued, I was going to make an utter fool of myself. Aggravated, I scanned the table one last time for a useable utensil. A fucking butter knife would have been better than what I had.
“I never use those things,” Abby said. “Eat it with your hands, it’s more fun. That’s how they do it in Japan.”
Relieved, I slid the cherry blossom adorned sticks to the side and looked up. Abby held a piece of sushi between her fingers, no differently than if she were eating a French fry.
“You can eat this stuff with your hands?” I asked. “I thought it’d be an etiquette thing. I’m not looking to have some pissed off Japanese guy over here yelling at me.”
“A good rule of thumb is if it has rice attached to it you can eat it with your fingers,” she explained. “If it’s sashimi – raw fish – it needs to be eaten with chopsticks.”
I glanced at my food. “What if it’s both?”
She chuckled and nodded toward my plate. “It’s surrounded by rice, so it’s finger food.”
“That’s a good thing,” I said. “If I would have had to use those chopsticks, there would have been more of this stuff on the floor than in my mouth.”
“How do you normally eat it?”
“This is my first time,” I confessed.
Her face contorted. “I asked you if you liked sushi. You said yes.”
“You said how does sushi sound. I said it sounded great.” I studied the piece I held. “I’ve never tried it, though.”
“I hope you like it.” She brushed her hair away from her face, eventually draping it over her ear. After rubbing the bottom of her nose with her index finger, she grinned. “Try it and see what you think.”
I poked the piece into my mouth. Surprisingly, it tasted good. Excited by the complexity of flavors, I looked at Abby with wide eyes. “I ordered the spicy tuna roll because I like tuna and I like spicy things. Looks like I made a good choice. This is pretty tasty.”
“I love sushi,” she said. “I could eat it every day. It’s not fun to eat it alone, though.”
I ate everything alone and didn’t see the complication. “What’s a good alone food?”
She brushed her hair behind her ear again and cocked her head to the side. After some consideration, her gaze met mine. “Salads. Scrambled eggs. Soup. Sandwiches. Those types of things.”
I reached for another piece of sushi. “Things that start with an ‘S’?”
She laughed. “No. Things that are boring. Boring things are okay to eat alone. Things that are fun should be shared with someone.”
I ate the piece of sushi and then wiped my mouth with my napkin. “What’s fun?”
She shrugged. “Pizza. Sushi. Spaghetti. Any Italian food, really. Tacos. Ice cream. Pie. Those are all fun, and they shouldn’t be eaten alone.”
I looked her up and down. Her arms were the size of my wrists. I couldn’t see her legs, but I didn’t need to. I’d seen them plenty when we were in the desert. They were lean and muscular, like that of a conditioned runner. By my guess, pie wasn’t a staple in her diet.
“You don’t look like you eat much pie,” I said.
“I can eat an entire pie.” She leaned forward and raised her brows. “All by myself.”
I spat disbelief on the table between us. “Bullshit.”
“I’m dead serious,” she said, beaming with pride. “I love pie.”
“What’s your favorite?”
She smiled. “Pecan.”
“A pecan pie has five thousand calories in it.” I argued. “There’s no way on earth you could eat one of those.”
“I have the metabolism of a cheetah.”
I chuckled at the thought of her attempting to eat an entire pie. “I’d pay money to see you eat a whole pecan pie.”
Her eyes widened a little. “How much?”
I shrugged. “Fifty bucks.”
She looked me over. “Make it a hundred.”
If Tito’s claim was correct, she made ten million dollars a year. She sure didn’t act like it. I decided he was misinformed and challenged her on her pie eating abilities.
“I’m not talking about a six-inch pie or some dumb shit like that,” I said. “A standard sized pie.”
“I’ll eat a nine-incher for a hundred,” she said with a smile.
I choked on a laugh. “If I offered to pay you a hundred to eat a nine-incher, wouldn’t that make you a prostitute?”
“If you offered to pay me a hundred to eat a nine-incher, you better have a nine-incher for me to eat. If not, it’d make you a liar. I don’t like liars.” she said, straight-faced.
Upon hearing the remark, half my blood shot to my face and the other half rushed to my cock. Now sporting a full-fledged hard on and sure I was blushing, I slid to the edge of the booth and tried to act suave.
With my manhood available for view, I looked right at her and raised both eyebrows. “I don’t lie.”
She peered over the edge of the table. Upon seeing my denim-encased wonder, her eyes went wide. “I’d uhhm. Wow,” she stammered. “An honest man is an attractive man.”
Her eyes remained glued to my crotch.
“So, what’s it going to be?” I asked. “Pie, or that?”
She lifted her gaze to meet mine and then shook her head, as if to clear it of impure thoughts. “I think I’m going to have to stick with the pie.”
“What?” I snapped back.
She flashed a guiltless smile. “My mouth gets me into trouble sometimes.”
“I want your mouth to get you in trouble,” I said. “Nine inches of trouble.”
“Men’s minds always go to sex.” She giggled. “I was offering to eat a pie.”
I slid into the booth. “You started this with your little sexual innuendo.”
“Like I said. It’s my mouth,” she said, feigning innocence with a half-assed shrug. “It often says what I don’t want it to.”
“My guess is that it says what you’re thinking,” I said with a flick of my hand. “And you’re too embarrassed to admit it.”
She picked up a piece of sushi but didn’t eat it. It appeared she was in deep thought. Deep thought about sucking my dick, I hoped. I decided a little encouragement wouldn’t hurt.
“Are you going to tell me that you don’t think about sex?” I asked. “Ever?”
“Never.” She tried not to laugh but did anyway. After recovering from the laugh, she continued. “The thought of sex never crosses my mind.”
I laughed. “You don’t fart, either, do you?”
“I’ve never farted,” she said, stone-faced. “I have no idea what it feels like to pass gas.”
“Well, I do fart, and I often think about sex,” I said with a laugh. “Not at the same time, though.”
She tilted her head to the side and gave me a curious look. “Have you ever thought about sex with me?”
“Are we being truthful?” I asked.
She grinned. “Let’s try it for a while.”
“The day we met?” I locked eyes with her and leaned forward. “I thought about bending you over the couch and hiking that little dress of yours over your waist.”
She covered her face with her hands and slumped into the booth until she all but disappeared. “What else?”
I grinned at the sight of her. My honesty was either embarrassing her or torturing her. It was exactly what she deserved. “You sure you want to hear it?”
She spread her fingers apart and peeked at me through the space between them. “Uh huh.”
I grinned a sly smirk. “Poking my dick in your pretty little mouth.”
“Oh
God,” she moaned. “It’s the lips, isn’t it?”
“It’s everything about you, really.” I lifted my chin slightly. “Hell, I’m thinking about fucking you right now.
She swallowed heavily and then lowered her hands. Her face was glowing red from embarrassment. “Are you like this with every girl you meet?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“What. What uhhm. What…” she stammered. “What makes me different?”
“Everything,” I said flatly.
“Like what?”
“At first, I liked your outfits. The sneakers with a dress look pretty sexy in my book. You were eager enough to come sit with me. I liked that. I thought you were bold. The to-do list let me know you were goal-oriented A driven woman is attractive as fuck. Then, the entire rattlesnake thing? Yeah, you’re different. And, you’re pretty as fuck.”
In what I was sure was a subconscious gesture, she swept her hair behind her ear and scratched the bottom of her nose with her index finger.
“You do that thing with your hair quite a bit,” I said. “I like it. It’s cute.”
“It’s a habit.” She said, still glowing red. “I do it all the time when I’m nervous. Or when I’m in deep thought about something. I don’t even realize it.”
I rested my chin in my hand and looked at her admiringly. “What were you thinking about when you did it at the meeting?”
“I do it and I don’t even realize it, so I don’t really know when you’re talking about. It’s funny. George can tell when I’m thinking about something because of it. He always says, ‘what’s on your mind, Abby?’”
A tinge of jealousy washed over me. I’d never felt jealous in my life, and it took me by complete surprise.
“Who’s George?” I asked, my tone slightly bitter.
“He’s a retired Marine who owns a deli. He’s like my second dad,” she replied. “I eat there all the time.”
A rush of relief came from hearing her response, and it troubled me. I hadn’t had a girlfriend since I was in high school, and I had no desire to change – or at least that’s what I thought. For whatever reason, I felt attracted to Abby beyond simply admiring her looks. It seemed my swollen brain was changing my manner of thinking. I wasn’t sure I liked it. Nonetheless, I forged on.
Devil's Disciples MC (Box Set) Page 45