Low Sided

by A. J. Downey

  “You got it,” he said and stepped up to the counter to place our order. I smiled and admired the fit of the seat of his jeans as he leaned forward to be heard over the low din by the counter’s attendant.

  He ordered some things for his household and with a few pink bakery boxes in a paper bag with handles, the plump round loaf of bread in its plastic bag on top, we headed to the back of the narrow lobby in front of the bakery counter to listen for our name to be called.

  Breakfast was everything Mace had sworn it would be – rustic, flavorful, and all-natural ingredients. I happily filled myself with steel cut oatmeal and munched on a side of thick-cut bacon that was the perfect marriage of crispy and chewy.

  It was a perfect time spent with Mace, who I couldn’t deny I was falling deeply in love with. I hoped, and not so secretly, that this was just the beginning to a long life together. After everything… damnit, I deserved to be happy.

  “Hey, you!” I called out to Sauley as he stepped into my bar.

  “Hey!” he called back. “You are cordially invited.” He gave a sweeping bow and handed over an envelope and I smiled.

  “What’s this?” I asked, as he shook his hair out of his eyes. The guys had decided a few weeks back that he didn’t need to cut his hair anymore, and it was in that awful in-between phase of growing out, where it was too short to pull back and too long to keep it out of his face.

  It was driving him nuts. I could tell.

  “A little something something from Mace,” he said, slipping up onto a vacant bar stool. I got him a beer.

  “Let’s see here,” I said, tearing open the card.

  It was smaller than a greeting card and was indeed an invitation. Golden no less. I laughed.

  You’re invited! was emblazoned on the front.

  I opened the card, and the pertinent info was filled out on the form.

  Time: Tonight

  Place: The Club

  Dress: Casual

  On the three lines meant for the personalized details, Mace had written, Come Party With Us!

  I smiled and said, “I would love to.”

  “Yeah?” Sauley grinned.

  “Absolutely!”

  He chugged the rest of his beer and set it down. After a belch that could only be described as adorable, he said, “Rock on, we’ll see you then.”

  “Alright, be safe!” I called after him and he waved over his shoulder.

  The invitation was some sort of wicked curse. By delivering it, Sauley had unleashed it onto my world, and it made the clock positively drag. The needle scooting arduously around the clockface until the appointed hour when I could get the fuck up out of here. When I waved and called out my goodbye to Manuk and turned for the door, there was my Mace, waiting for me just outside, his phone to his ear and his bike at the curb.

  He swiftly got off the line when he saw me coming, shoving his phone away in a pocket.

  “Hey, there’s my girl,” he called out when I shoved out the front entrance to the bar. God, he looked delicious in all that rugged denim and leather. I smiled and went to him and he pulled me close. His lips were cold against mine and he smelled of wind and the outdoors – beneath it all like clean man and there was nothing better.

  “Hey, you,” I said softly, and he grinned. “You ready?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He led me to his bike, and we took the short ride to the club. It was loud, the music blaring from inside, out the open back door as he had me jump off so he could back the bike into the line of them outside the club’s motorcycle junkyard.

  He came to me, waiting on the sidewalk, and took my hand in his, swinging our arms between us happily as we made our way across the street to the back door of the club. There were a few of his brothers on the small square landing, smoking, beers in hand, laughing and talking.

  “Heeeeeey, there she is!” Sauley crowed, more than a little sauced by this point, saluting us with his beer as we made our way across the worn and sad blacktop of 15th Ave SW in his direction.

  I nodded politely at the brothers on the landing with him and one of them, a tall ebony man with dreadlocks, nodded back as he blew out a cloud of fragrant smoke of what was probably some of the highest quality green the Pacific Northwest had to offer.

  Damn, I kind of wanted a hit. It would go a long way toward mellowing me out with all of the meeting and greeting I probably had ahead of me. I wasn’t always so shy and on edge, I just really wanted to make a good impression, you know? I didn’t exactly know how to do that with this particular crowd. It wasn’t exactly my niche.

  I think the dude toking up caught me looking because he held it out to me. “I’m Major. Welcome to the party.”

  “Hi, Major. I’m Raven.” I introduced myself and availed myself of the spliff, taking a decent hit off it.

  Major grinned at me and gave a lift of his chin to Mace. “She’s alright!” he said, and I laughed without letting go of any of the smoke as I held it in for as long as possible to let it do its thing.

  The other dude on the back porch I’d already sort of met, a guy by the name of Squatch – which it wasn’t hard to imagine where he’d come by that name. Dude was hairy and looked like a straight-up neanderthal out of a children’s book, except, you know, clothed.

  Inside, we found Maverick, Glassjaw, and Fenris- those were the ones I knew. The rest consisted of a giant of a man that went by Dump Truck, which he was certainly as big as one, but I don’t think that’s where he got the name. Then there was Nine, Cipher, Derry, and the rest were sort of a blur after that. I think that had more to do with the combination of whatever weed Major had going on – it was some good shit – and the shots the guys lined up for me to catch up on the bar.

  The bartender happened to be a woman. A bigger lady in an animal print kaftan, the boys all called Ms. Momma Kat with a sort of strange deference in their tone. She didn’t appear to be with any of them which I know it sounds judgy but that would have been slightly awkward given she seemed significantly older than most of the guys, but they rather treated her almost like a surrogate mother figure or something.

  Then there were the women… what can I say about those? Well, other than they were most definitely divided into two camps. The respected and revered and the… not. It was kind of misogynistic and douchey but there was a definite hierarchy to it. The women who were kept and sort of immediately pulled me into their circle and welcomed me, and the scantily clad other women that Maverick’s woman, Marisol, seemed openly hostile toward – calling them ho’s and telling a couple who stopped and looked in our direction to “fuck off.” Which, they did, to my surprise, moving to hang on a brother named Cipher and Glassjaw.

  The revered women, for lack of anything better to call it at the moment, consisted of Aspen, who I knew, Marisol, and a woman everyone called Little Bird, and a glam doll bombshell that somehow managed to straddle the line between named Dahlia. I couldn’t decide if that was her actual name or just another nickname, but I definitely wasn’t going to ask her. She was cold, cold, fire that one – the type to send a shiver down your spine with her deeply cutting remarks without you even realizing how deeply you’d just been burned.

  “So, Raven, how come it’s taken you so long to come around?” Dahlia asked and I sort of stuttered, not sure how to answer. I mean, she gave off the kind of vibe that the question, though innocuous enough, could very well be a trap, and I didn’t want to misstep in any way.

  “Raven likes to keep to herself. She’s shy and slow to warm up to folks. Took me the better part of the day at the farm to get to learn anything about her,” Aspen declared and smiled at me.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. Blushing, I nodded.

  “I know the feeling.” Little Bird gave me a tight smile, and I returned it.

  “You the bartender that patched Mace up a couple months back?” Marisol asked, and I nodded.

  “Oh! Okay, that’s right.” She shook her head. “My little brother has been a handful lately and I�
�m more than sort of out of the loop.” She gave a gusty sigh.

  “Who’s watching him?” Dahlia asked.

  “Prospect from Oregon,” Marisol said with a lift of one shoulder. “I don’t like it, but Mav insisted. Said I needed a break and some adult time.”

  “He’s not wrong, you know.” Little Bird hid behind her glass and took a drink.

  “I know,” Marisol said, and it was almost dejectedly. “I just worry.”

  “You’re a good big sister,” Dahlia soothed, and I felt completely out of the loop when it came to the conversation. With a mighty urge to pee, I stood up.

  “Where you going?” Aspen asked cheerfully.

  “Break the seal,” I said with a shrug.

  “Ah.” Marisol nodded. “If the bathroom down here is locked, there are like three upstairs.

  “Don’t mind the mess, they haven’t finished the building up there,” Little Bird added.

  I smiled and nodded and went for the water closet down here. Occupied. I drifted to the open doorway I’d glimpsed stairs through in the hallway just past the bar and went up.

  There were heavy sounds of making out in the darkened corners up here, and I ignored those. A girl came out of one of the bathrooms as I was trying to decide which door might be a bathroom and I nodded to her and went in.

  I did my business, washed my hands, and fuck… out of paper towels. She could have warned me, but she didn’t. Not sure if it was because I was with the “Old Ladies” as they called themselves, or not – but whatever.

  There were several boxes and random totes out here in the upstairs and far be it from me to go snooping, but they may have a resupply I could put up in the bathroom. I popped the top off a gray tote in the middle of the room and felt my brow crush down.

  It was a lot of random stuff, nothing paper towel or even towel-like to be seen and I went to put the lid back on it but froze. On top of everything, there was a white envelope, and through the glare of streetlight that just happened to make it through one of the paper-covered windows up here where the paper had drooped, I caught my name in bold, black, and familiar script across the face of said envelope.

  I slowly half kneeled to set the lid aside, out of the way and wiped my hands somewhat dry on the seat of my leggings. Fingers trembling, I reached for the envelope and tore it open, turning the single sheet of handmade paper into the light.

  Raven –

  Please come see us. We aren’t mad or upset. We’re scared for you. Your friend Mace came to see us; he sort of explained without any details what happened. We’re here for you and we want to hear those details from you – or not, it’s up to your discretion. Please come home.

  Angelica

  The shock of emotion was so profound I didn’t even feel it at first. It was sort of like going numb, like being dropped like a magnet into a pile of kinetic goo, the glob seeping up around the edges and pulling it down, slowly devouring it. The burn of betrayal was a nasty one as it crept across my skin and up my neck and face in a heated flush of… of… I don’t even know what to call it. Embarrassment? Anger? Humiliation?

  That I trusted Mace. That I believed him when he said all of those things, those things about protecting me, about having my best interest at heart, about… about…

  I lowered the paper, the wave of hurt crashing over me and momentarily dousing the fire. I kneeled and put the lid back on the tote and took a deep breath.

  Confrontation wasn’t my favorite thing, but I recognized a time and a place for it, and this was definitely one of those times if it wasn’t exactly the place.

  I found Mace, beer in one hand, pool cue in the other talking to some brothers from the Eastern Washington and Western Oregon chapters. I sidled up to him and tugged on his jacket sleeve and asked, “Can I talk to you?”

  He smiled at me, but there must have been something on my face, in my expression, because his easy smile faded into something far more serious when he said, “Yeah. Lead the way, babe.”

  I took it outside, away from prying eyes and curious ears… at least I hoped so.

  When I thought we were sufficiently alone, my emotions boiled over and I turned on him, holding out Angelica’s note and demanding in a clipped tone, “What is this?”

  “Aw, shit… babe, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it.” He at least had the grace to look embarrassed, which I wanted it to be something but…

  “Mace, this is a huge invasion of privacy!” I cried and the feelings of fear at my discovery swirled in my breast. I mean, talk about red flags!

  “Oh, hey… I didn’t approach it from that place at all!” he cried, as though his intentions made the result somehow okay.

  I shook my head. “And the boxes of my stuff?”

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets and hung his head.

  “I was trying to bring them to you, make your life a little easier. I don’t know.”

  “Why didn’t you just ask me? Talk to me? Communicate with me?” I cried. “Do they know where I am?”

  He shook his head. “No. I wouldn’t do that to you. I just offered to deliver the note. Seriously, Raven, I didn’t want to ask you. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “Mace!” I cried and waved the note and envelope between us. “This? It hurts! This scares me! I mean… Jesus, fuck! Who are you?”

  He hung his head and stuck his tongue into the side of his cheek like an errant little boy who’d been caught sneaking cookies and not like the grown man standing in front of me who’d gone rifling through my past that I had tried so valiantly to leave behind to protect the people I was leaving behind in it.

  The same people those cops and Max had threatened to hurt next if I didn’t keep my mouth shut and disappear.

  My leg bounced with anxiety the more upset I became and all he did was stand there and look at me, hand to his mouth as his dark eyes glittered in the streetlights and he looked me up and down, waiting for I didn’t know what.

  “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I fucked up.”

  I sort of jerked back in surprise. I mean, that wasn’t exactly what I’d expected to come out of his mouth. I don’t know… I guess I expected excuses, but he didn’t give me any. Just looked at me plaintively, guiltily, and shrugged his shoulders.

  A sort of helplessness flooded me, and I shook my head.

  “I want my shit and I want to go home,” I said hollowly, and he nodded slowly.

  “I can make that happen,” he said carefully.

  “And I think we need to take a break,” I said. That’s when he deflated a little, but he agreed.

  “If that’s what you need, you got it,” he said and sighed. He looked like he was getting a little emotional, which wasn’t that a bit rich?

  “Let me grab Sauley and we’ll walk you back to your place with your stuff,” he said, and I hugged myself and nodded.

  “You want to wait here?” he asked after a moment of hesitation and I nodded again, not trusting my voice.

  “Okay,” he murmured, and he was gone, striding back across the cracked asphalt to the club’s back door.

  “No going back, Raven. Only look ahead,” I told myself quietly and let out an unsettled breath.

  I mean, what was I hoping he would do? Fight me on this?

  21

  Mace…

  I insisted on carrying her shit all the way to her door, Sauley on my six as I watched Raven’s perfectly toned ass in front of me as we made our way up. I was afraid it would be the last time I got to enjoy the view, and that gutted me.

  I’d fucked up in my order of operations. There wasn’t any question about that, and here I was paying for it. The price looked to be a damn heavy one.

  I’d rather be looking at going back to prison than this.

  “Thank you,” she murmured as Sauley set the tote he’d carried at the top of the stairs.

  “Give us a minute, man,” I muttered, and he nodded, jammed his hands in his back pockets and with a sweep of his too-long hair get
ting into his eyes, he backed down the stairs. When I heard the door at the bottom shut, I raised my eyes to my girl’s.

  I didn’t like the pain I saw in them. Pain that I’d caused.

  “You know where to find me,” I said, and she nodded. God, those steely blue eyes were too wide, glassy with unshed tears that I could tell she was fighting back.

  “I know I don’t have a right to ask,” I said, taking in a shuddering breath. “But can I get one last kiss for the road?”

  Her lips thinned and I could see the wheels turning and finally, she nodded, tipping her face up slightly in permission.

  I stepped into her, cupping her face between my hands and brought my lips to hers.

  That kiss, the fact that it could be our final one… shit. It low sided me harder and more swiftly than I could have imagined.

  She sobbed slightly beneath my mouth and quickly tamped it down as she returned my love, hers a suddenly timid thing – reserved, like weak sunlight filtered through heavy clouds whereas before I could bask in it all day long and feel warmed all the way through.

  I’d fucked up. Hurt her. Broke her trust… and it was that kiss that told me just how deeply I’d fucked this. My only consolation prize was that she was safe. From Max, at least.

  “I love you,” I whispered fiercely against her lips as I drew back.

  “I love you, too,” she murmured, and she sounded absolutely shattered. “Which is why this hurts so much.”

  I backed off and gave her some space.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her. “You take as long as you need to either forgive me or hate me,” I said. “I’ll be waiting.”

  I turned then, abruptly, so I didn’t have to see her cry – but it was too late. I’d seen the crystalline tears of her pain slip down her cheeks, and it gutted me, worse than what I’d done to that pig in her name.

  “You alright, man?” Sauley asked at the bottom of the stairs as the door shut behind me.

  “No, man. No, I’m not,” I growled, and he nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. I swallowed hard and nodded.