He seems to know what he’s doing. I settle back on the couch, wondering whether he can actually play it.
Suddenly the guitar bursts into life. He plays a few riffs, his fingers flying up and down the fret board. It’s magical, fascinating, particularly as he seems to lose himself. Suddenly he starts playing an intro that I recognise. It’s one of the songs I often play on my phone, loving the original from when I was young, and appreciating the version he’s now launched into. His foot starts to beat rhythmic time as he repeats the intro again, then, closing his eyes, he opens his mouth and he begins to sing.
“If I were a carpenter…”
Oh my God! My hand goes to my mouth in shock at his voice. It’s no longer the gruff tone of a sergeant-at-arms—still deep, but melodic, almost hypnotic. I hardly dare breathe, not wanting to spoil this moment and remind him I’m there.
But he hasn’t forgotten me. When he sings, “Give me your tomorrows,” his eyes come to mine, but he doesn’t falter for an instant.
That guitar sings. The strings might be old, but the instrument doesn’t care it’s been sat unused for almost three years, coming to life as though saving itself for this moment. I’m lost, transported somewhere far away as he picks the intricate accompaniment to the incredible melody that’s coming out of his mouth.
The volume increases. He throws in a few vocal tricks not unlike Robert Plant himself. It’s as though my living room’s been transformed, and I’m in the front row of a concert I’ve paid good money for.
I dare not breathe when the song comes to an end. He glances at me. When I give him a carry on gesture, he does. Song after song comes out of his mouth while his fingers keep picking those strings.
He launches into a rendition of Roll Me Away and I realise that’s who his voice reminds me of, Bob Seger. He’s only got a guitar, but somehow, he makes it work, his voice strengthening as he reaches the crescendos, his boot now stomping down hard, forming the percussion to accompany his song. His head moves, his expressive tones belt out the words taking me away, picturing the rider on the road, wishing I was the girl up behind him. I wouldn’t have gotten too cold, and I’d have never left him.
A movement catches my eye. Looking over his head, I see the music has drawn Alicia out of her room, and she’s standing wide-eyed and avidly listening. When he next reaches the end, he ruefully eyes the guitar, the last few chords sounding a little out of tune, not unexpected, given the bashing the instrument has just had.
“Said it needed new strings,” he mutters, fiddling with the keys on the machine head, the action drawing my attention to his long and deft fingers once again.
Alicia comes around the couch.
“That’s my guitar.”
Grumbler looks up, his hand curled around the fret board. “You mind?”
“Hell no.” She plonks herself down beside me, making the couch cushions bounce. “I’ve never heard it played properly before. I didn’t even know it could sound like that. Will you teach me?”
He studies her carefully, then casts an eye my way. I know what he’s thinking. A promise made by Grumbler is, I suspect, a promise that will be kept. And who knows whether we’ll keep seeing each other or go on separate paths. For my part, I know I don’t want to see him walk away, even when our issues with Devon are resolved. On his? I’ve no freaking idea. My shrug stops me from influencing what he next says.
“Sure, if you’re serious. But you won’t learn in a day.” He’s addressed her, but his gaze immediately comes back to me—an eyebrow raised in challenge. Is this his way of saying he’s not going to be walking away? I shiver slightly, knowing it’s in anticipation of the excitement a man like Grumbler could bring to my boring life. A bad boy, can I handle that? It might not have been something I anticipated in my life, but I have no doubt I want this. I’m old enough to know what I want and go after it. I won’t be a hands-on mom for the rest of my days. All too soon, Alicia will strike out on her own. Why shouldn’t I take something for myself?
I have to admit, Grumbler agreeing to give time to my daughter does something to me inside, remembering the man who wanted to ignore her existence and the other who wanted to walk in and take over. It’s not as though he hasn’t seen the worst of her, he has. He knows what to expect. That he’s agreeing to help her and not running for the hills scores many points in my book.
Having been disturbed, to my dismay, he puts the guitar aside. I swallow my regret. I could have listened to him for hours. That voice? In a womanly way it made me feel alive. The action he used on the strings made me wish it was me he was strumming instead. I feel like I’m experiencing a crush on a rock star more appropriate for someone Alicia’s age. My face feels hot and I resist the desire to fan myself.
“Have you been playing long?” my daughter asks. I suspect she’s wondering how long it will take to match his proficiency.
“Got my first guitar when I was twelve,” he answers.
“You should be in a band.”
His mouth quirks at her statement, then he shakes his head. “Bit past it now, but I was, once.”
Alicia bounces on her seat. “What band? Would I have heard of you?”
“Nah, we only played local clubs, and that was well before you were born.” His eyes glaze as he thinks back, then his mouth twists, as though his memories have turned dark. “We were approached to go into a recording studio. Yeah, we were good.” He shudders slightly as he comes back to himself. “But it was a dream, that’s all it was.”
I’m curious. “What happened? Why didn’t you make a record?”
His expression hardens, and just when I think he’s going to clam up, he looks at Alicia. “I didn’t listen to my mom. She took a dislike to our bass player, but I couldn’t see why. He was hip,” he pauses, seeing her not understand, “with it. A man, well, a kid really, you’d look up to and admire. He always seemed to have it together. I thought that was what she didn’t like. I was eighteen, he was twenty. At that age, two years is like a mile.”
Giving a wistful look toward the guitar, he brings his attention back to us. “Mom wanted me to get a proper job. I got by on the shit that we earned playing in the band. It wasn’t bad bread for a man my age. One night, after a gig, we were coming out of a club. Rod, the bass player, well, he must have seen something I hadn’t. Anyway, he passes me his guitar case, said he had somewhere to be, and would I get it back to the van. I agreed, of course, saw nothing wrong in it. He left. I walked around the back of the club where I was jumped by two cops.”
Suspecting I know where this is going, I ask, “What was in the case?”
Grumbler doesn’t hesitate. “Coke. More than one man needed, but not enough to seriously deal.”
“Did you tell them the case wasn’t yours?” Alicia’s perched on the edge of her seat, her fingertips at her mouth.
He regards her for a moment. “Didn’t matter. I was in possession.”
“You were arrested?”
He shakes his head. “One of the cops, he was a friend, a very good friend of my mother’s, if you get what I mean. He’d been inside watching the show. He knew it wasn’t mine as it was a bass guitar. Tried to get me to tell them whose it was, they needed me to say it. But you don’t rat on a friend, you know?”
“Did you go to prison?” Alicia’s eyes are wide.
“Nah. That’s when I was given the choice of a trip to the cells or to the recruiting office. He didn’t do that for me, of course, he did it for my mother. Still, he gave me the choice, and I chose the latter.”
“And the band? Did they split up?”
Grumbler half smiles. “See? That’s when I found what true friends are. Rod hadn’t betrayed me, he’d betrayed us all. There wasn’t going to be a place for him anymore. Instead of finding two new members, they broke up the band. Fagan continued playing drums, but not with the calibre of bands like ours had been. Jon Boy left to do some sessions down in LA.” Jon Boy, I grin to myself. He’s the same age as me, but he’s not
lost his full handle along the way.
“But you still play?” I ask. It’s obvious. You don’t pick up a guitar after forty years and remember the skills.
“Sure, but for myself. Got a couple of guitars back at my place.”
“At the club?”
“Nah. I got a house. Not somewhere I really go, just when I need space to unwind. That’s when I play.”
That’s what he was doing tonight. The music hadn’t been for my benefit, but for his. I’m not complaining.
“Do you ever see the men in the band?”
I nod. “Yeah. A few years back, I bumped into Fagan. He said Jon Boy was local, and we got together to jam. They’d met up with a guy, Kurt, who joined us on bass. I meet up with them from time to time.”
Alicia’s attention span is limited. Seeing the end to the sharing has passed, she turns to me. “Got anything to eat, Mom?”
“In the cupboard, I’m sure.”
When she goes, I stand and go toward Grumbler, placing my hand on his shoulder, saying quietly, “I bet you got all the girls with a voice and talent like that.”
He chuckles softly. “That would be telling.” His eyes sharpen and seem to pierce me. “What I want to know, is whether I’ve still got what it takes?”
It’s my turn to chuckle, well, it’s more of a giggle. “Seems you have, old man. Seems you have.” I wink at him.
“Christ woman.” He grabs hold of my hand. “It’s a fuckin’ shame you’ve got a teenage daughter living here.”
Alicia walks back into view carrying a slice of leftover pizza, a large portion of which is in her mouth. With the result, I have to ask her to repeat what she just said.
“I asked if Grumbler’s going to sleep in your bed again tonight.”
How the hell did she know that he had? I don’t deny it. “The couch is far too small for him.” I wave to indicate his size. “We’re adults. Nothing happened.”
She nods. “I noticed he wasn’t on the couch when I got up to get some water, but I know there’s nothing to worry about. You’re far too old, not like Marisa’s parents. She has to wear earplugs to bed at night.”
My mouth opens and shuts. Worried, I glance at Grumbler but he’s staring up at the ceiling, his body vibrating slightly as though he’s trying hard not to laugh.
“Anyway, I’m off to bed. Night.”
Eventually, Grumbler lowers his chin and his gaze captures mine. Smirking, broadly, he murmurs, “Is it bad that I kinda want to prove her wrong?”
Would Grumbler make me scream? I gaze at his bare arms covered in tattoos, suddenly having the urge to see if he’s got them elsewhere. I can tell he’s muscular but lean by the way his t-shirt clings. His beard, hell. I’d always wanted Dave to grow one, but he never had. It’s not bushy, but short and neatly trimmed. Then there are his eyes. When I’m subjected to the full force of his orbs staring into mine, it’s like I’m being pierced by laser beams. I know, without even experiencing it, that sex with Grumbler would be the real deal. He’d be focused on me completely.
Am I woman enough to survive?
“We can’t.” I’d scar my daughter forever. It’s bad enough she knows we’ve shared the same bed.
Chapter Thirty
Grumbler
Too old are we?
Maybe I am. But not Mary. To me she’s a woman in her prime. She makes me feel youthful, almost a teen. The thought of being naked with her makes my cock harden until it feels like a rod of steel, pulsing almost painfully as precum leaks out, making my boxer shorts sticky. I haven’t had this strong a reaction to a woman in years.
But her daughter is in the next room. I should let her sleep, just as I had last night. Perhaps it’s because I know a sexual release would ease the soul deep ache inside me, wash the horrors of the day away. But not with anyone, only with her. I suspect, losing myself in her would save me. Selfish? Maybe.
How quiet could Mary be?
I’m driven to find out. Driven to see if I can make this woman cover her mouth to smother her screams. I have no doubt she’ll be crying out. I have confidence in my skills, and just like playing the guitar, doubt I’ve forgotten them. Over the years, I’ve mapped every part of a woman’s anatomy, know all the various pleasure points and what buttons to push.
I’d picked up the guitar for myself, using, as I so often have, music to quiet the demons in my head. I’d played only for me at first, then found I was playing for her instead. It had been impossible to miss the effect it had on her, the way she’d so delightfully flushed when she watched my musician’s fingers moving so fast, plucking at those strings in the way I’ve perfected in more than four decades. I’d suppressed my smirk, but her reaction had taken me back to those long-ago days when I’d been on stage, thrusting my hips, playing my guitar slung low, knowing many of the girls were wishing it was them my fingers were strumming instead. Even as a teen I was never short of someone to warm my bed, or allow me a quickie against a back wall of whatever club we were playing in. Of course, I allowed my fingers to do the work first, only then giving them my dick and finding my own pleasure. A woman, in my book, always comes first.
Then I’d seen the horror of life when I had served. I grew up, I had to. Learned there was more to life than following my dreams and getting off, that there was a real world and I had to join it. My guitar lay forgotten, untouched in its case for many years. I joined the MC, prospected, worked my fucking socks off to earn my patch. I threw myself into the life and the brotherhood, and found a new reason for living, my cherished bike. For years, she’d been my sole mistress, but my music still called.
When I bought my house, well, it seemed the adult thing to do and preparation for a time I might not be able to ride, and hence not be in the MC any longer, I got my guitar out of storage. I was rusty at first, but it soon came back, and so did the pleasure I got from playing music.
Alicia said I should be in a band. I’m far too old to strut my stuff on stage now, but about the time the business blew up with Snake in the club, meeting Fagan had come at the right time. Jamming had given me an outlet, a way to escape from the other crap in my head. I still joined them occasionally, just playing for ourselves. Both had tried to make it in the music business for a while, but never made their mark. Money had to be earned, so they went citizen ways. Jon Boy was a carpenter, and a good one. I’d gotten him in to do much-needed work at my house. Fagan? Well he was a truck driver.
My MC brothers have no inkling what I do on those rare evenings I meet up with them, and recently with Kurt, another old-timer who’s a fuckin’ good bassist. It’s a secret I keep for myself. But now I feel my past slamming into my future, knowing I’d like Mary to come see us rehearse, see me play for real on one of my electric guitars and not an acoustic.
When Alicia had asked me to teach her, I knew if I said yes, I’d be making a commitment. She’s had too many broken promises for me to add one more. It means, even after we’ve destroyed the evidence of what Owen had done, and Devon is taken out of the picture, Mary and Alicia will still be in my life.
I find the thought isn’t at all unappealing. Though previously I had doubts, maybe I could find time for the right woman in my life. Maybe even have her riding up behind me on my baby. What previously had been a sacrilegious thought, I can see me adding a pillion seat, even a sissy bar to keep Mary safe.
Perhaps she wouldn’t want to ride with me?
I suspect that she will. Mary’s got a devil streak in her. I don’t know how, but I’m sure of that.
Suddenly I realise while I’ve been lost in my reverie, Mary’s been going through her nightly routine, taking out her glass and my empty bottle, checking the windows are locked and that the alarm on the door is set.
She pats me on the shoulder, saying softly, “Come in when you’re ready.”
I stay where I am, giving her time to get decent. Or at least, how she expects she’ll be spending the night. My plan is to get her naked, but I know she’s got to be at ease first
.
When I think I’ve given her long enough, I get up from the chair, move the guitar from the place where I left it and settle it safely back on its stand. Then, I switch off the light and proceed to her bedroom, tossing her a wink before I enter her bathroom and do what a man does before going to bed. I take off my t-shirt and toss it onto her hamper, just leaving it there ready for the morning. Then, I replace my cut over my bare shoulders. I might be getting an old man’s body, but I work out, particularly since my accident, and know I still look fit. I’ve learned a thing or two over the years that two things can do it for a woman.
She’s already seen the tattoos on my arms so she’s not going to freak out at the rest of my ink. Now she’ll see them framed in all their glory, and covered by my cut with the sergeant-at-arms patch in pride of place, shows me off nicely.
As a touching finish, I unbutton the top two buttons on my jeans, allowing them to settle on my hips, drawing attention to the defined V I’ve got going for me. Yeah, I can be a sneaky fucker at times.
Of course, she might just roll over and go to sleep, but I’ve a sneaking suspicion my looks will do it for me. I’m going to have Mary tonight, fuck that her daughter’s sleeping nearby, and she’ll just have to be quiet.
I gaze in the mirror, for a moment seeing in my reflection myself as a younger man, then the image morphs slowly into the man I am today. I realise my accident had caused me to accept my mortality. I’m lucky to be alive to ride another day, but the damage to my leg had hit me hard. Having to depend on others when I was laid up in hospital, then at the compound when I was unable to climb stairs by myself, it had made me feel weak and helpless. It had given me insight into the years ahead and had made me feel old.
Grumbler's Ride: Satan's Devils MC San Diego #2 Page 25