by Ethan Egorov
But I don’t even know his address, I never drove myself to his house. That thought makes me feel even worse, but I can’t keep dwelling on the bad stuff now. I can’t go to his house but I can still find him at home, at the club.
So I go there, I take the faster highway route and am dropped in their parking lot twenty minutes later. I’m nervous as hell. My knees shake in my skirt and I make sure my pink blouse isn’t too revealing, but I am only nervous about him seeing me and turning me away.
I don’t know if Roland would do that, but I do know that he is a standup guy. Honorable. It helps me open the heavy wood door and step inside. The sounds and beer smells are very familiar to me by now, even the way some of the guys will turn and stare until they mind their business again.
I’m glad when I spot Spencer at the bar and I go over to him.
“Hey red, what’s up?” He grins, he looks a lot like his brother and I wish I could practice this on him but clearly, I can’t.
“Nothing. Um, where is your brother?” I ask him, leaning against the bar. He sets down the glass he was wiping and nods.
“He just left.”
“Left?” I ask.
“Yeah, he had to go… somewhere. Then he came back and left just as fast again. Why don’t you just call him?”
I sigh with defeat and sit on the bar stool to rest.
“His phone must be dead.” I kept trying to call him on the way, but it would just go straight to voice mail.
“Yeah, he’s shitty at keeping his phone charged. I’m sure he’ll call back soon enough.” He leans his forearms on the bar and smirks at me.
“Did you talk to him earlier?” I ask, wondering if he might have told him. But I know men have different gossip patterns than other people.
“Nope. We aren’t the talking type. You want to wait around for him or what?”
I sigh, shaking my head.
“No, that’s fine. Thanks.” I step down and head back out to my car, planning to just go home.
But I hope that I can talk to him at some point. If his phone really is dead then once he charges it, he will see my missed calls. Unless it wasn’t dead and he was just avoiding me.
I text him instead, saying that I am sorry, and then start the drive home. The tears stop, and my makeup is streaked down my face but I accept that I will feel like a mess until I get home. But he is there, all around the place he is there, I can’t escape him now because I let him in.
I don’t regret that. I just regret not keeping him.
I arrive at my building, parking and walking along the sidewalk with my head down. It must be why I didn’t see it—
I come to my door and find a very familiar face standing there.
“Roland? Oh my god, I’m so glad to see you.” I rush to him, hugging him tight around his middle. He stiffens up but I just grip him tighter. I inhale his warm scent and let it wash over me. I thought I lost him, and now he is here.
“Roland, hug me back, please. I have… emotional issues.” I say through tears, laughing once but not meaning it.
He sighs and his arms come around me, I feel the muscles constrict and lose myself in them.
“I’m mad at you, Paige.” His gruff voice floods my ears and makes me smile. I pull back and look up at him, wiping my tears.
“I know. I’m mad at me too.” I step around him and unlock my door, leading him inside.
He sits himself on the couch, I walk around and stand in front of him, a safe distance considering all the things I want to do to him.
“Paige,” he looks up at me, all the emotion in his body pours into me. I look over, his taut jaw and pursed lips, the way his jeans and cut fit his body like a glove. He is so sexy and enigmatic; I’m drawn to him. I—
“I love you, Paige. That’s what I was going to tell you tonight, after I took you to a stuffy five-star restaurant with fifty-dollar entrees and white tablecloths. Cause I thought that’s what you like, I mean what you’re used to. I’m not used to this, us—but I love you anyway. And I can’t force you to love me back, but I can only hope that you do. I’m not ready to give up on you.” He finishes, his voice gets all serious and his eyes just open up to me and it’s like seeing a man I never met before.
“Roland—”
He raises his hand, stopping me.
“Don’t say anything if it’s just to appease me. I don’t want that, sweetheart. I just want you to know the truth.”
I release a breath, finding it in me to breathe normally afterward. I take my shoes off and go over to him, in disbelief that he actually does love me. Wondering how to tell him that I do too.
“I am going to tell you the truth, Roland.” I whisper, stopping in front of him.
He looks up at me, and I find strength in the way that he does. I hold his face in my hands and he tenses before relaxing, leaning into my hands. I step forward until I am straddling his lap, awkwardly so in my skirt, but it is still nice to feel his body against mine.
“Roland, I tried not to—I tried to keep my heart out of this but you just dragged us both in. And I know I still have a lot to work out, but I did mean it, when I said I trust you. But not when I said that I don’t want to. I do want to. I am in love with you too, Roland. And that’s scary. For I don’t know how long. But I’ll still love you in all that time anyway.” I look in his eyes and watch him hold the same face before he falters.
He relaxes his face and smiles at me softly, and that takes away every heavy feeling that I have.
“Are you still mad?” I giggle once.
His reply is to wrap me so tightly against him that all I can breathe is him. All I can feel is him.
“We’ll see.” He says. He lets out a little growl before kissing me, before claiming me with his lips.
I fall in love with him all over again in this kiss, I see how much he loves me too in this kiss. His lips against mine have purpose and poise and I hold him against me. I was all wrong about him, thinking I could just have fun and that would be the end. It was only the beginning. I came here to start a new life, and now I have.
With Roland. No matter the consequences or the fear, he taught me how to face them, even though I still have a lot to get through. We break the kiss and he carries me off to the bedroom to really make me his.
Epilogue: Roland
I probably shouldn’t be coming back here, I feel like I’ll get arrested just for being here. But I do it for Paige.
Most of what I do these days is for her.
It becomes the center of my life, doing things for her. One of which is picking her up from work for all the world to see. It’s been a few months since our little declaration of love and now every day is like a honeymoon. We talked about how it might look if we are together, but she said she would worry about her job, and I would worry about mine.
It works better that way; I mind the club and she minds the law, it’s actually pretty comical, us being together. But it works.
I eventually told the guys at the club the whole story, about how we met, and then once she was introduced, they love her. Only my friends at the club though, Kit and Darius, Logan too. Spencer already knew and he dogs me about it every chance he gets, I just swiftly remind him of the pres’ daughter.
Once I park my bike, I dismount and lean on the side of it to wait for her, the doors open like clock work at five pm.
I grin at her, the tight white skirt she has on doing wonders for my concentration, making her look like the angel she is. Her red hair swings behind her in a pony tail and bounces with her descent down the steps.
“Hi,” I smile at her.
“Hi.” She just about leaps into my arms. I kiss her, swinging her around to rest on the bike, tasting her and inhaling her sweet scent. I know it by heart now, I know all of her by heart.
“You ready to go?” She asks. We usually go to my place after I pick her up. It’s bigger, and she likes it better anyway.
I pull back and lick my lips, tasting her gloss on them.
“Actually,” I look in her grays eyes as I hold her around the waist.
“What?” She giggles, holding my arms over my cut. The weather is still warm, mid fall, and the wind blows her scent over to me.
“I want to marry you. Right here at the court house.” I tell her and wait for the drop. The fear of commitment thing has gotten better but maybe that’s too much. Her last fiancé… I can see why she looks the way she does.
“Roland—that’s—we don’t have any rings.”
I laugh loud at her. “That’s your excuse? We don’t have any rings?” I chuckle.
“Well… or a witness. Or a certificate.” She rambles.
“Okay, your honor. Can I get an answer somewhere in here?” I smile at her.
She stares at me wide eyed and I watch her mouth open and close as she stutters.
“You want to marry me?”
“Yes. You want to marry me too.” I smirk at her.
She releases a breath and throws her arms around my neck, kissing me hard.
“Is that a yes?” I chuckle my lips mashed against hers.
“Yes.” She kisses me back. “You asked me this just on a whim?” She giggles.
“I saw you wearing white and I just knew it. I don’t want to waste any more time. I know what I want.” I tell her.
“I want you too.” She smiles wide.
“Let’s do this.”
After our perfect, random, on the spot wedding, I get to call her my wife and don’t care that we did most of it backwards. I did get her a ring, one that she got to pick out herself, and that was it.
In the passing weeks, I told the guys at the club and took a little time off, just to take a little road trip and call it a honeymoon. It only lasted a weekend because she didn’t want to miss too much work. We got her out of her lease and now we live at my house together, it’s nice waking up with her every day.
“Now that you’re my wife, can you learn how to cook?” I wrap my arms around Paige, my wife, and lean her against the kitchen counter.
“Why should I have to when you know how?” She giggles, wrapping her arms around my neck.
“Fair point. I guess I can be compensated in other ways.”
She laughs, “Other ways? It doesn’t work that way, Roland.” She slides her hands down my face, raking over my stubble with her nails.
“It does now.” I kiss at her neck, hearing her breathy sigh and making one of my own.
“Hm. I think I can get on board with that.” She kisses me, a soft mix of our lips together and souls connecting.
Sometimes I don’t even think of her as my wife, only my better half. The piece of me that came along and decided it was going to fit. I wouldn’t be the same without her, and I don’t want to try, not ever.
“I love you Paige, so much.” I lift her up and wrap her legs around me.
“I love you too, Roland. I love you.” She smiles, looking like the sun itself in my midst, and she kisses me back harder than before. I return it.
For the rest of my life. I know I will love her, the way she loves me.
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Falcon: Outlaw MC III
Synopsis
I live a life of no surprises, but she is the best one that there is.
Chantal Hailey, the damsel in distress, is going to be mine.
I can deny it all I want, but she’s the sunlight in my dark and boring life.
The guys at the MC, they understand what it’s like.
She’s my escape, my sunshine.
And I’m ready to stand in the sun.
1
Logan
I park my bike out front of the bank, ignoring that feeling of long stares I get any time I go anywhere these days. At first it was because my cheating ex lied about me all over this small town, then the cops digging into our club and making us look unsafe. We have done a lot to try and build our reputation back up and its taken a few months. But I still go to an ordinary bank and get looked at like I’m about to rob it.
“Will you be depositing into your normal account?” The teller asks me. Donna, I know her by name because that’s how small this town is. She’s old, I don’t know how much but maybe my mom’s age, and she doesn’t ask questions when I drag fifty grand here every other week.
“Yeah, thanks.” I tell her. My normal account being the one tied to the club. It doesn’t even have a debit card, it’s just a black hole of cash that keeps the place afloat, which has gotten harder as we go on. I’m not sure why, but three months ago it was eighty grand. The shops are doing well, plus the bar, so I am probably going to have to bring my finance degree to good use and figure it out. I was one of those that went to college for fun, and I had my fun, but I’m also good at numbers too. My parents would rather see me at a hedge fund, but they’ve let that idea go over the years.
I wait as Donna does all the clerical stuff and pass the few usual questions; how I am, how my parents are and where they’re currently traveling. Its been their thing the past few years, traveling I mean. I’m an only child and they have nothing else tying them down here. But luckily people have learned to stop asking me about Chelsea, it’s no longer a slip of the tongue.
“A lot less this time.” She hands me the final receipt with our information on it.
“Yeah, I—“ I am about to make up an explanation before an obvious shriek cuts through the small banking room, one that has everyone’s head turning.
I follow it until I find the culprit, a young woman judging by the scrunching in her hair and I only know that ‘cause of watching Tank’s daughter grow up. But she is clearly upset, the streaks of her blonde hair flying off as she continues to yell.
“There must be some sort of mistake. My account can’t be empty, please just look again.” She pleads, her voice is soft and honeyed, with a small accent that sounds southern more than midwestern, telling me she isn’t from around here. And I try not to eavesdrop, but she is just very loud.
The teller declines her request to check again and says people are waiting, but I feel bad for her. Not so much the expensive dress she has on and the clear sense of entitlement she has. I know it well, I ran into a lot of those folks back in college but that was damn near ten years ago, I’d like to think I’m wrong, but still.
“Thanks Donna.” I grab my receipt from her and stride over to the line where the young woman is. There are three people waiting behind her, who eye me, one long one from another guy to which I glare at and make it obvious that my cut comes with a warning, that always works, even though I’m not all that proud of it.
But it gets me up to the teller, some girl who is maybe my age, no younger than thirty from the crinkle around her eyes.
“Logan, what are you doing?” She asks me. I go next to the woman, but I don’t even look at her, I feel her looking up at me from where she is standing a few inches below me.
“Maybe just check again, you know, just to say you did.” I ask her. She probably knows my name because she has been around the bar, but I don’t know hers. It tells me that all the right things will probably work on her. My dark hair and light green eyes with the leather jacket and mean smolder that allude to the fun danger behind being in an MC that most of the women who come around are after—should do it.
“Fine.” She shrugs confidently. As she checks her computer screen, I take the opportunity to survey the woman next to me.
She’s young like I thought, her messy pony tail add to that appeal and her blonde hair offsets her bright blue eyes. She has a plump pair of soft pink lips that are pursed in a scowl at all this, and the sun yellow dress she has on is tight at the top and revealing enough that I forgot what I was doing here and why. Whoever she is, she’s damn gorgeous.
“Oh my god…” The woman shouts again and then she leaves, stomping out of the bank in wooden heels that I feel in my chest when she does. I hold back a laugh at her but smile to myself, whatever is going on brings out the worst in her, it seems.
“Thanks.” I say to the teller, and then I go after her.
It brings me outside, back in the heat. It is the dead of summer again and I don’t much like the heat, but here it isn’t that bad. The beating sun matches the billow of the yellow dress I take off after, right at the end of the parking lot.
“Hey, wait!” I call after her. She stops at the end of the street, by a sleek purple car; a Mercedes that costs more than my entire life by the look of it.
“Are you alright? Need some help?” I ask. But its not like she is strapped for cash, it seems. I thought her bank account was emptied and she would be stranded but it doesn’t seem to be that way. I get close enough that I could reach out and touch her, but I don’t. She has her hands braced on the window of her car, slender fingers with pink painted nails. Her skin is the perfect amount of tan, smooth and sinuous. I try not to look at her legs but I’m that kind of guy, her dress stops mid thigh and the rest is blazing with the sun. I stand and wait as I hear her breathing heavily, before she turns around.
“I don’t need any help. Thank you.” She is facing me but stares down at the ground, enough I can see a hint of her blue eyes, but it is mostly her matching eye shadow that I’m getting. She is all dolled up, her makeup clear as day. But what gets me is that mouth of hers, heart shaped and a perfect shade of pink, parted as she tries to catch her breath. Which only draws my gaze down to her chest, the dress has thick straps that are tight on her skin and push at her—