It had even been worth the beating I got for buying it. Not because mom was pissed that I got a bike. Honestly, she would have been fine with me getting into an accident and dying. No, she was pissed that I had money hidden that she didn’t know about. She’d stolen money from me before when I was little and had a bank account that she’d help me set up. I’d been so proud, putting my meager birthday money in and getting a little passbook account. Mom had to be on the account because of my age.
I remember thinking that maybe finally my mom was proud of me as she stood next to me with her arm around my shoulder. She never showed me affection, so that touch was shocking, and I almost cried like a fucking girl.
I should have known better, because as I put money in, she took it out. Basically, birthday parties became her way of pimping me out to get money to feed her various vices. Alcohol, drugs, you name it. She let me know more than once that it was my own damn fault that she didn’t want to stay sober. She used drugs and alcohol to forget that I existed.
I got wise to it and started cashing my checks when I went to the bank, rather than depositing them. There was a loose board in the floor of my room, and I kept all my money there. So, yeah, I got my shit handed to me when I came home with a motorcycle and she realized through her drunken stupor that she had been duped. I had missed a week of school waiting for the welts to go down and the bruises to fade. Anything she could hit me with she did. If we’d been in the kitchen, I had no doubt she’d have thrown knives at me.
Again.
It had been worth it. I started hanging out at a repair shop after school, pestering the owner with a million questions until he finally hired me to do grunt work. He figured he wasn’t going to get rid of me, so he might as well put me to good use. Carl could be a real dick to work for. He expected things done his way every time, and he accepted nothing but perfection every time. However, before I even realized it had been happening, he had apparently been teaching me the trade.
I swear, that man saved my life. More than once I would show up bloodied from one of mom’s episodes, and he would quietly provide me what I needed to patch myself up, not ask any questions, and throw a pillow and a blanket on the couch in the office for me.
I ended up making that clunker of a bike run, and it looked better than it probably did the day it rolled off the factory floor. It took a few years, but it was a beauty. Carl actually even taught me to ride, and took me for my permit when I was sixteen. Most people’s parents taught them how to drive a car, mom obviously couldn’t be bothered. Well, that and she’d had her license suspended so she really couldn’t.
In Massachusetts, you had to be eighteen to get a license. On my eighteenth birthday, Carl drove me to the Registry of Motor Vehicles, and paid for me to take the road test. When I passed, he paid for my license and gave me a check to cover my first year of insurance. I had to go to the bathroom because the tears that threatened to fall were overwhelming me. I’d never really learned how to deal with people being nice to me, so I just didn’t. I wasn’t about to punch a hole in the wall at a government building, so I just sat there on a toilet, staring at a temporary license, blown away by the feeling of freedom I had. This was my ticket out of my hellish life.
About a year after I got my license, someone made an offer for my bike that made my head spin. Honestly, I’d about passed out at the thought of having all that money. I did ask Carl what he thought, first, only because I didn’t think I should make a money decision without some advice, and he was the only person I trusted. We talked over what had been put into the bike, how much I had originally paid for it, and he looked up what it probably would be worth, which was a couple thousand more than the guy had offered. Carl suggested I counter offer. I thought he was nuts, but I did, and my first deal was made.
I was fucking hooked. I was nineteen at the time, helping run Carl’s shop, and now had the opportunity to deposit a check with three zeros at the end of the amount in my bank account. The one I got by myself when I was eighteen and could do it on my own.
Over time, I continued buying and selling bikes, restoring them and selling at a profit. It turned out I had a pretty good head for ‘flipping’ bikes, and did it for a few years until I got a little bored. My bank account was more than sufficient, and I’d had a little bit of success with investments, so I decided to see about buying into a partial ownership of a Harley dealership. I’d run the numbers and it seemed like a good bet. Carl decided he didn’t want me to have all the fun, so he joined me on the venture, and together we ran Carl’s Harley Davidson in Norwood.
We were up to three dealerships just last year as we were looking to expand once again, and have a separate corporate office. The day after the ink dried on the lease agreement, I got a call from a lawyer’s office. Carl had suffered a fatal heart attack and was gone.
The only father I’d ever known was gone.
The only person who had loved me for me was gone.
The only person in the fucking world who gave a shit that I was alive was gone.
I remember sitting numbly as the lawyer explained to me that because Carl had no kids, I owned everything. All of it, the dealerships, the fancy office, the money. I was thirty years old with no personal debt and more money that I would have ever dreamed a single human being could possess.
I looked out the door of my office and scanned the cubicles that housed my small staff. I had two people in accounting, an administrative assistant and a human resources person. We had openings for purchasing, because now that we had expanded to four locations, we had some buying power, so it would be beneficial to have someone who could negotiate contracts. I had an intern from a local college helping with marketing stuff. I wasn’t sure if I was going to hire her or not. She was a sweet kid, but maybe a little too soft for a Harley chain. The first time someone said ‘fuck’ on the office floor, she damn near jumped out of her seat and then did a hurried sign of the cross.
Yeah, life had turned out okay. That rust bucket old bike and my license had been my ticket out of Mattapan and the life I had the misfortune of being born into.
And yet, here I was trying to come up with a good reason to swing by a nursing home to pick up a tiny chick with an enormous attitude problem.
Chapter Fourteen
Dane
“Um, hi, is this Kaylie?”
I hated the slight shake of uncertainty in my voice as I spoke to the beautiful girl who was an emotional sister to the woman who held my heart captive. The last time I’d seen her she was sporting bright pink hair. Today the color was turquoise blue. Normally, I thought it looked absolutely ridiculous when men and women dyed their hair colors previously reserved exclusively for Crayola, but somehow it worked on her.
“Yup, that’s me. Who’s this?”
I contemplated hanging up the phone. For at least one second, I thought ‘if you just hang up the phone, she’ll never know how pussy whipped you are, and you can get away scot-free’.
Then I remembered that we are well past the age when caller ID was put in place, so I couldn’t hide.
“Helloooo.”
Her voice took on that annoyed lilt that women have perfected for centuries, dragging out the ‘o’ longer than necessary.
“Yeah, sorry. Um. It’s Dane.”
Silence.
For a moment, I wondered if she had hung up the phone. Perhaps she thought I’d figure it had just been a bad signal. There was a part of me that wished she would. If she did, I don’t think I’d be able to pour enough brass in my balls to try for a second time.
“How are you?”
Her question was not spoken in a way that was cold. If anything, it was laden with sympathy and caring.
Huh.
I was certain Mari had to have filled her in on what a horrific human being I was, because they shared everything. Kay knew all about Mari’s problems with people lying to her, specifically males, so I imagined there would be some sort of shared sisterhood of disdain for all things Dane.<
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“I’m fine. Well, no, that’s a lie. I’m not fine. I’ve honestly had much better days than I’ve been having, but I’ll be fine. How are you and Marianna doing?”
I still chuckled a little bit that she found herself a woman whose nickname was the same as Mari’s. Surely it must be hysterical when shouting out her name during an orgasm. I imagined she had decided to stick with the full name of Marianna like the rest of us had.
“Yeah, I bet. We’re fine. So, seriously, what’s up?”
It was almost as if she’d expected this call. She didn’t once ask how I got her phone number, or why the hell was I calling her. She just accepted that I was on the other end of the line, like I should be there.
“Is there any chance I could meet you for coffee?”
“Like a date?”
“Uh, unless something has drastically changed in the last few months, I don’t think I serve up your preferred entrée.”
She snorted on the other end of the line. Good God, I hoped I hadn’t offended her. I mean, I’d really only met her once, that fucking night we went to that restaurant and Mari whored herself out to that douchebag biker dude. But that one night, man, I felt like we got along really well, and we had been licking cheese off of each other’s fingers.
Like, we had a moment.
“Dane, if I was batting on your team, I’d be all over what you were pitching.”
I grinned a little into the phone.
“So, coffee?”
“Thank god you’re cute. Because I usually don’t become human until after twelve noon. Obviously, Mar didn’t let you know that little tidbit. So, meet me at that new cafe you own at noon. You’re buying.”
She hung up the phone, not out of anger, but out of efficiency. We’d said what we needed to say over the phone, no need to drag this out into a prolonged phone conversation. I cringed for a minute. She would pick the QB2 for our meeting. I knew that Mari had moved out in the middle of the night with almost no notice, so it wasn’t like we were going to run the risk of running into her. It was just that same feeling that I had whenever I was at the new location. I couldn’t help but picture her standing next to the door that lead to the upstairs apartment she had rented.
Dad had offered to try to track her down, and demand that she pay up, or keep her security deposit. My sister, Cheyanne, gave me the death glare until I fessed up that it was partially my fault that she’d left. Okay, more than partially.
Fuck. It was my fault.
I looked at my clock, realizing there was only about an hour till I was going to meet Kay. I packed up what was on my desk and took the short drive across town to meet up with her.
“Hey, Dane.”
Johnny reached across the counter to shake my hand. I had recently moved him to the new QB to run it while I was trying to juggle the two locations plus my dad’s business. It was hard to believe this was the same guy who was borderline harassing me just months before. I’d stuck it out with him because I knew about some of the issues he’d had growing up, and won some serious loyalty as a result. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t help but wonder if he would be a good candidate to consider running both locations, or at the very least, be the manager at the QB2.
“Hi, Johnny, how’s things?”
Johnny reached to grab a medium coffee cup and poured what he knew was my favorite brew, adding in a splash of cream and one scoop of sugar.
He handed it over with a wink.
“Actually, it’s been really busy up until about a half an hour ago. I was afraid we were going to run out of muffins the way people kept pouring in. You’re going to have either bump up production, get another baker at the main QB, or install some kitchen equipment here, because it won’t be long before we have greater demand than we have supply.”
Yup, Johnny was definitely in the running for management. A small burst of pride developed in my chest knowing how much it would mean to him to have the opportunity to grow with me. I was going to have to get a lot more serious about putting numbers together to see what I could afford.
There had been a minute or two a while back where I’d thought I was going to have to let him go for sexual harassment or some shit. He was way too flirtatious with me, to a point that almost made me uncomfortable. I had been surprised that no one else had come forward to complain about it, so rather than lose my head, I sort of step back and monitored. Well, that and watched the security cameras that I had installed for hours on end.
What I found was that I was the only person that he had ‘targeted’. Everyone else he was easy and comfortable with, working efficiently and with that non-stop smile of his. He would compliment the guests, both male and female, but in a way that was effective at making them feel welcomed into the little home that we had carefully created at the QB.
I had sat down with him, because the behavior was borderline uncomfortable for me, and I knew I had to say something, and the poor kid broke down on me. Literally broke the fuck down.
Turned out that when he had come out to his parents, it had gone about as badly as you would expect. At sixteen years old he was homeless, kicked out with one bag of clothes and a toothbrush, learning how to professionally couch surf. Apparently, one of the teachers in his school started to notice that he was slipping, both academically and socially, and intervened. Eventually, he was welcomed back into his home, but it was beyond strained.
His parents refused to acknowledge him as their son. I knew that it cut him worse than being kicked out of the home. When they were in a situation where they were forced to introduce him, they would just say, ‘This is John.’
It would be cold and unfeeling, and it hit the mark every damn time. His brother and sister would be introduced with a warm smile, ‘This is our daughter, Kelsie, she’s a sophomore at Boston University.’ Then when they got to Johnny, their smiles would fade and they’d just motion to him and say, ‘This is John’.
So, the overly flirtatious manner he had with me was because I was some sort of an ‘authority’ figure that he felt safe with. That loyalty mean that I was given one hundred percent of his authentic personality. I’d asked him to tone it down a bit, that I was honored that he felt safe with me, but we needed to make it a little less comfortable.
He had been so embarrassed, and I remember that I let him take all the time he needed in my office that day. By the time he came out, his eyes were puffy like he’d been sobbing.
My other employees glared at me, figuring I’d broken poor Johnny’s heart.
I still shook my head at that memory, smiling at the way they’d banded together, surrounding him with their love and acceptance. I had never been more proud of my little family as I was in that moment.
“Thanks, Johnny, I’ll have to start thinking about getting the second phase of the kitchen done sooner rather than later. You’re doing great here, I think you and I might be having some important talks in the near future.”
He just beamed from ear to ear, having a slight idea of what I had in mind.
I heard the door open from behind me and almost pissed myself when Johnny let out a squeal that nearly burst my eardrums.
“Kaylie!”
He jumped the counter and ran smack into the powerhouse that was Mari’s best friend. I stood back, enjoying the exchange between the two of them. I had no idea how they knew each other, but as much as Boston was a major city, it had a lot of small town attributes that made it an incredible place to work and live.
She hugged him back with equal enthusiasm, planting a wet, sloppy kiss on his cheek.
“How you doing, beyotch?”
I smiled in bemusement, wondering why a guy wouldn’t be pissed off being called a bitch, or ‘beyotch’ as she pronounced it. Instead, he grinned at her with a twinkle in his eye.
“Girrrrrrl, I have started seeing this guy who makes my toes curl just at the sound of his voice.”
I hadn’t thought it would be possible for Johnny’s animation level to go up at all, but damned
if it didn’t. Kaylie looked at me with a slightly apologetic look, gave a single shoulder shrug and held up a finger, asking for just a moment.
I gave her a thumbs up and walked back behind the counter to handle any customers that came in while Johnny took a much-needed social break.
The door opened up and I was looking into the eyes of a dark pixie. That’s the best way I could describe this chick. She was tiny. Like, I could pick her up under one arm, run down the field and spike her kind of tiny. But the crazy thing was, she didn’t look fragile. Nope, this chick leveled me with one glance, sort of like she was telling me that she could split me in two if she really wanted to.
I smiled at her, hoping to both welcome her to the QB2 and relax her at the same time. Her eyes narrowed as her left eyebrow shot up. Nope, looks like that was not going to happen today.
“Can I help yo…”
She cut me off by holding up a finger, silently telling me to wait. Where Kaylie had done it in kind manner, asking me for a moment, this chick did so in an abrupt manner, telling me that she was taking a moment.
I took an involuntary step back, handing her a victory in a weird pissing match I hadn’t even realized I was having.
She looked at the menu above my face, and took her damn time studying it.
I watched as she crossed her arms and shivered when I realized they were covered in tattoos of sculls and some dark flowers dripping blood or some shit. Her hair was like an inky midnight purple, which oddly seemed to fit her winning personality. I probably could come close to circling her waist with my hands, but she was so muscular that I knew every ounce of weight she carried, which was next to nothing, was pure sinewy muscle.
There was something both attractive and scary about her. Unfortunately, scary won out, and my dick sort of pulled a fast retreat, becoming as close to an ‘innie’ as it could be without turning into a man-gina.
I had no idea what her story was, but I would be afraid that she would snap my dick off in a heartbeat if I looked at her with anything other than my normal level of ‘shop owner to customer’ kindness.
Until We Fall (Trust Duet Book 2) Page 8