We came to a stop amidst a massive collection of motorcycles and cars. Baker secured the motorcycle, hung his helmet on the handlebars, and turned around.
He patted the fluff from his beard with the palms of his hands. “So, you liked it?”
I nodded eagerly as I fumbled with the helmet, unsure how to get it off. Baker grinned, reached for it, and unstrapped it.
“It’s not as easy as it looks,” he said.
“Show me.”
He lifted the nylon strap, poked it through the two metal rings, and threaded it back under one of the rings. “Just like that.”
“Okay. Next time, I’ll know.” I lifted my gaze to meet his. “There’ll be a next time, right?”
“If you want to.”
“I want to.”
He got off, and then reached for my hand. “Addictive, isn’t it?”
I stepped over the seat and stumbled when I tried to stand. I steadied myself against his chest. “I don’t even know…if I said what I’m thinking, you’d probably think I was crazy.”
“You might be surprised.”
I looked at the motorcycle. It’s black and yellow paint was polished to perfection. Sleek and powerful looking, its appearance alone was an invitation to get a speeding ticket. I shifted my eyes to Baker. “It’s all I want out of life right now.”
He coughed a laugh. “To go for a ride?”
“Uh huh.”
He folded his arms over his chest and gave me a look. “Why?”
My response was gibberish, but it came easy. “Nothing matters out there. There is nothing else. It just. It’s cleansing. I feel like I had an orgasm, got a manicure, pedicure, massage, and had a hot bath all at the same time. And, the wind. The wind washes all of life’s bullshit away.”
He put his hands on my shoulders. “That’s a pretty solid answer.”
“So. We can do it again?’
“We will.”
I was giddy with excitement. “Tomorrow?” I blurted.
He turned and draped his arm over my shoulder. “You want to go tomorrow?”
I liked how he put his arm around me. It was sneaky, but cute. Two weeks prior, it would have seemed out of place. On that night, it seemed perfect. I nestled up to his side as we walked to the elevator.
“I want to go every day.”
“Every day might be tough, but we can go as often as it makes sense.”
I rested my cheek against his shoulder. “Okay.”
We walked to the elevator in silence. The smell of oil, gasoline, leather and his familiar cologne merged into one sweet-smelling scent. I matched his walking pace, and allowed it to filter into my nostrils, and my memory.
It was something I never wanted to forget.
With his arm still holding me at his side, we got on the elevator. As the doors closed, he turned to face me. His eyes smiled.
And then, he kissed me.
His arms wrapped around me, pulling me so close I could feel his heart beating against my chest. It wasn’t a powerful kiss in an aggressive sense. It was soft, meaningful, and extremely pleasing.
The passing of time paused, allowing the kiss to seem to last forever. I felt my heart being tugged closer to his as our tongues danced to a song that he and I seemed to somehow both be listening to. At some point, the elevator came to a stop.
As the doors opened, our lips parted.
I studied his face. He was feeling what I felt. The proof was sprinkled throughout his steel-blue eyes.
He brushed my hair away from my face and looked at me intently. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but those same eyes answered me before I could speak.
There was nothing wrong.
Everything, on that night, was right.
31
Baker
Goose finished washing the dishes, inspected each of them for imperfections, and put them in their respective places in the cabinets. After the kitchen was as tidy enough for him to accept it, he poured a cup of coffee and sat down.
“I don’t know how you can drink that shit black,” I said. “You’re going to have ulcers before you’re forty.”
“Coffee doesn’t produce ulcers.” He took a sip. “It’s therapeutic.”
I lifted my cup of cream and sugar laced java. “If it’s doctored up.”
“Adding cream and sugar to coffee is like adding cinnamon to a chili recipe. It ruins it.”
“Who the fuck puts cinnamon in chili?”
He gave me a cross look over the top of his raised cup. “People like you.”
“On another subject. Dinner was a huge success.”
“She like the coxinhas?”
“The fried chicken balls?”
“Legs,” he said. “They were supposed to look like legs.”
“They looked like fried teardrops.”
He stood, finished his coffee and then poured another cup. On his way back to his seat, he shrugged one shoulder. “It was the best I could do on short notice.”
Goose was addicted to caffeine the way a heroin addict was addicted to smack. He needed it all waking hours of the night and day. He was the only member of the MC that would alternate drinks of beer and coffee at the same time.
“Seemed to like ‘em,” I said. ‘She ate half a dozen of them.”
“They’re a bitch to make. Good little fucker’s though.”
“I appreciate it.” I tilted my cup toward him. “It went better than I expected.”
He took a drink of coffee and then chuckled. “I know you didn’t go to a movie.”
The shark-toothed blowjob story had made its rounds enough times that everyone knew my position on going to the movies. The men were also well aware of most of my superstitious beliefs. Most of them.
“No. We went for a ride.”
“What’d you take?”
“The bumble bee.”
“The old GSX-R, huh? Wouldn’t have guessed that.”
The motorcycle we’d taken was a Suzuki hyperbike. Capable of going from zero to sixty in two seconds, it quickly became a favorite of mine when I wanted to put a smile on my face. As it seated two people fairly comfortably, it was an easy choice for the night’s ride.
“It was easy,” I said. “Kept me from shuffling a bunch of shit around.”
“If you’re keeping the girl, you need to get a bagger.”
My belief had always been that riding wasn’t a team sport. Having a bagger was an invitation for someone to hop on back. In the past, the thought of it made me cringe.
“Hate to spend the money,” I said.
“Depends on how comfortable you want her to be.”
“I really don’t think she gives a shit. She went on and on about how much she loved it. I could have put a p-pad on the fender of the hardtail and she would have been thrilled.”
“First ride?”
“Yep.”
“Always a cool feeling to bust a chick’s cherry.” He pushed his coffee cup to the side and rested his forearms on the edge of the table. “How do you think the fellas are going to take it if this chick ends up being your ol’ lady?”
Hearing him say it caused me to tense. Not from my thoughts regarding the club’s reaction, but from my own resistance to accept that I’d ever be in a conventional relationship.
I shook my head. “She won’t.”
He widened his eyes a little. “You’re one hundred percent certain this is nothing but a fling?”
I wasn’t. But the thought of it being otherwise troubled me. I looked away. “I don’t know.”
“You know. You just won’t say.”
I looked at him. “Since fucking when are you a mind reader?”
He locked eyes with me and then smirked. “You might be able to manipulate most motherfuckers by giving them your crazy-eyed looks and talking slick. I’m not one of ‘em, Bake. I know you, remember? The rest of the fellas will probably say something like, shit, Baker won’t ever have an ol’ lady, I know him too well. I call bullshit. I hate the tho
ught of being tied down. I can’t stand the smell of diapers. Don’t care much for having to answer to anyone but me, either. Mary’s dirty-fisted kids marching around my house putting fingerprints on the walls made my butthole pucker. But you know what? When I fell in love with that gal, it had nothing to do with what I thought I wanted out of life. It just fucking happened. And, it all started with a piece of pussy that knocked me on my ass.”
“I’m not going to bullshit you. I’m enjoying her company. But. But. But.” I looked him in the eyes. “I’m not planning on falling in love.”
He shook his head and grinned. “A man never plans to.”
I gazed beyond him, into the living room. “I’m not going to.”
“Might not have a choice.”
I shifted my eyes to him. “I’m in control.”
He spit out a laugh. “The pussy’s in control.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Poking your dick in this chick has got you feeling like you’re fucking a high school cheerleader that does Kegel exercises while she sits in an algebra class she don’t quite understand. She’s got a dynamite little pussy so tight it causes you to bust a nut that makes your head spin. That’s what you said, right?”
“Something like that.”
“Guess what?” He cocked an eyebrow.
I cocked mine. “What?”
“If anybody else was fucking her it wouldn’t feel like that. Her twat fits you. It’s not as much her twat’s composure that makes you come like a faucet as it is the chick that’s carrying it around. You feel the way you feel when you fuck her because of who she is, not what she’s packing in the gap between her thighs.”
I felt like I was sitting across the table from Doctor Phil. I wasn’t prepared to give his advice as much consideration as I wanted to, so I simply agreed with him. Kind of.
“I suppose we’ll see in time,” I said.
He stood. “I suppose we will.”
I walked into the living room. In complete contrast to Andy’s contemporarily furnished home, mine was decorated with an eclectic mix of old world meets modern society. A grandfather clock from the nineteenth century told the time. Music was often listened to on a forty-year-old turntable I’d purchased while on a trip to England.
My furniture was gathered one piece at a time, and none of it was bought new. Some was from the 1950’s, some from the 60’s, and a few pieces were modern. Quality and price didn’t always go hand in hand, and I made my selections based on a quality and a piece’s unique nature, regardless of price.
I walked to the buffet that was centered along the far wall. As I admired the craftmanship of the fifty-year-old piece, I noticed a chip of wood beneath it. Puzzled by where it might have come from, I bent down and studied it. When I stood, I hit the back of my head on the edge of the buffet.
Frustrated, I dragged my finger along the edge that nearly knocked me senseless. A piece of wire tucked neatly beneath the ornate wood came loose as my fingertip hit it. As it dangled into view, the hair on my neck stood on end.
I stood, faced the kitchen, and snapped my fingers.
Goose turned around.
I raised my index finger to my lips and then motioned for him to come to me. Without speaking, he obliged.
I knelt and pointed to the wire. At the tip was a what appeared to be a small microphone. The quality of the device led me to believe whoever had planted it wasn’t a private detective or an amateur of any sort.
It appeared the government’s finest were attempting to listen in on my life.
Goose inspected the listening device, crawled under the buffet, and removed it. Silently, we walked to the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet.
Not knowing if the home was fitted with more devices, we went to the elevator, down to the parking garage, and into the alley. As he nervously smoked a cigarette, we discussed what we’d found.
“You sure it wasn’t her?” he asked.
The possibility had crossed my mind, but only long enough for me to rule it out. “Positive,” I said.
“How positive?”
I glared at him.
“Just asking.” He took a drag, and then blew a ribbon of smoke into the air. “Wonder how long they’ve been listening.”
“Hard saying. Be a boring job listening to that recording. We don’t ever discuss anything in there.”
“What about the clubhouse? Your office?”
The thought anyone listening to the conversations in either of those locations made me cringe with fear. After a moment’s consideration, I looked at him with wonder in my eyes.
“Seems that they’ve had arrested us long ago if they were listening to our meetings.”
He took another drag, and then went wide-eyed. He coughed out the smoke, and gave me a bug-eyed look. “How’s the building set up? Who owns it? On paper?”
“My LLC owns the building. I lease the second floor from the LLC. City has it set up weird. Each floor is a different address.”
“But you lease the second floor in your name?”
I nodded. “Graham Baker.”
“They’ve got to get a search warrant to plant that shit.” He tossed his cigarette aside. “If they planted it on the up and up. Bet they got a warrant for the place in your name. The LLC is the deed holder to the building, and you’re the person who leases the second floor from the LLC?”
His logic was beginning to make sense. I hadn’t initially set up the LLC to offer me the protection it was offering me, but I was glad I’d done what I did when it came to ownership.
“Yeah,” I said. “But, on paper, I don’t own the LLC.”
“Who does?”
“My mom’s sister.”
“Karen? The gal who raised you?”
I nodded.
“Thank fucking God,” he said. “I feel better about everything now.”
He may have felt better, but I had a mind full of questions that I was afraid no one could answer.
I glanced at my watch and immediately began to laugh hysterically.
“What?” he asked.
I shook my head in sheer disbelief. “What day of the month is it?”
“Thirteenth,” he said. “Why?”
I didn’t bother responding.
32
Andy
Baker invited me over to listen to music and hang out. Spending the evening with him changed my Sunday from blah to something I was sure to cherish. Nervous about what the future held, but pleased at the growth we were both making, I sat cross-legged on the floor with my eyes closed and listened to the cleanliness of the music.
When the record stopped, I opened my eyes. “I’ve never enjoyed listening to the Rolling Stones until now. Holy crap. Listening to them on vinyl is awesome.” I opened my eyes.
Sitting on the floor in front of the turntable, he looked cute barefoot and in jeans. His head was bobbing ever so slightly, and his eyes remained closed. “Exile is a great album on vinyl. It’s got to be one of my all-time favorites.”
“Tumbling Dice was great, but I really like that Sweet Virginia song. You could tell they were really having fun with it. Music has changed so much.”
He opened his eyes. “Where’d your love of music come from?”
“Boredom. I started with an old-school cassette player that my dad had. I listened to his box of cassettes over and over.”
“Cool. What was in there?”
“In his cassettes?”
“Yeah. What did your dad listen to?”
“Everything. Velvet Underground. David Bowie. Van Morrison. Bob Dylan. Stuff he really had no business listening to.”
“How old was he?”
“He was born in nineteen seventy,” I said. “He was a January baby.”
“That’s an interesting assortment of music.” He crossed his legs and rocked back and forth. “I started with vinyl. I was always fascinated with it. That nothing more than a groove in a piece of plastic could reproduce sound.”
“It’s a mechanical representation of sound waves. Grooves are cut in the record. The depth of the groove is developed based on the changes in atmospheric pressure caused by the sound waves while recording. When it’s played, the turntable’s needle does the opposite. It sends the measurement of the groove to something that turns it back into a sound wave. Voila. Music.”
“Who turned you on to records?”
“My aunt.”
I had a mental pause when he responded. I found it more than coincidental that his aunt introduced him to music, and my aunt raised me after my father died. I didn’t want to ask, but eventually the girl in me exposed herself.
“Were you and your aunt close?”
He grinned. “She raised me.”
“Is she still alive?”
“Alive and well in Montana. She lives an easy life. Last time I was there, she had no television, no internet, and no desire to embrace technology. I used to walk from her house to town. It was five miles. Run is more like it. I did it in Chucks.”
“You ran five miles in Chucks?”
He raked his fingers through his hair and grinned. “Pretty much every day.”
“What brought you here?”
“Me and a bunch of friends decided Southern California would be more receptive to our way of living life than Great Falls Montana. I was a pretty wild kid, and spent a lot of time in trouble. Doing dumb shit in Montana gets a kid arrested every time. Doing dumb shit in Southern California gets overlooked.”
“So, you and your friends moved here?”
He nodded, sending several strands of hair falling over his eyes. “Four of ‘em. Right after high school.”
“Are they still here?’
“Yep.”
“Do you get to see them?”
“They work for me.”
“Oh wow. That’s cool.”
“Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. Friends can get annoying. They tend to hold your past over your head just to remind you of it.” He stretched his legs, stood, and extended his arm. “Coffee?”
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