Bitter Sweet Beginnings (5 page)

I nearly spit out my beer. “Vince and Jean? What are you talking about? They never split.”

Ma rests forward on her forearms. “See how naïve you are about
how it works?
Your lady, Charlie, how old is she?”

I tell her.

I can see her doing the quick calculations in her head. “Yup. That’s about right.”

“What are you talking about, Mom?”

She grins that familiar grin that moms have when they know something you don’t. “When Jay was about two years old, Jean and Vince got into a terrible time. They split. Vince stayed on the road most of the time, working for the club, doing runs back and forth between Atlanta. Rumor had it that he found himself a little rebound comfort in some college girl. Nobody thought anything of it at first, thinking it was just a fling, you know, some goody-goody, preppy girl from the right side of town meeting a bad-boy biker. Soon enough, though, as we all predicted, Jean came to her senses and agreed to work it out with her Ol’ Man. The girl showed up at the clubhouse one night looking for Vince. She ran into a couple of the Ol’ Ladies instead and was pretty much told how it was gonna be. I was there that night. I saw the look in her eyes when she figured out that she and Vince were never going to be together. Jean found out about the girl and told Vince the only way it was gonna work between them was if he never went back to Atlanta again, never saw the girl again. He agreed.”

Wow. So
that’s
how it happened? I think back to my lunch date with Charlie and her family, where I had personally met this now-grown college girl. I can’t picture Regina with her sophisticated demeanor and respectable appearance ever getting with a biker, but it must have been so.

“Things must be getting pretty interesting down in Chisolm these days,” Mom sips on her almost-emptied beer. “It’s getting late, son. If that boy of yours is anything like you as a kid, he’ll be up at the crack of dawn with the roosters. I’ll need my rest to keep up with him.” She stands and kisses me on my cheek. “You think about what I said, now. Ain’t no use throwing a perfectly good relationship away because you got your pride hurt.”

~*~

Fuck…
could this couch be any more uncomfortable?

The cabin’s been quiet for hours, with both ma and Brendan sleeping in their rooms. I know there’s an extra bed in there with Brendan, but I have a feeling this is gonna be a restless night… I don’t need to ruin Brendan’s sleep just because my own is shot to shit.

I haven’t gotten more than a few passing moments of actual sleep since we left Chisolm. It just don’t feel right to sleep without her by my side.

My skin actually aches without hers touching it. My dick throbs without her body around it. It shouldn’t be like this… I mean, it wasn’t the last time, with Brendan’s ma.

Back then, I remember I celebrated my freedom by plowing my way through a clubhouse full of pussy.

But not this time.

Somehow, I just know I’ll never get another night of sleep alone again. And yet, I have no desire to find another to warm the space and try to take her place.

Why can’t it just be like last time?
I ask myself the rhetorical question, when I already know the answer.

It’s not the same because
she’s
not the same.

She’s like poison in my fucking veins, cursing me, and it’ll never be the same again.

CHAPTER FIVE

THEN

“You’re
not
taking my boy.” I threw my words at her.

I’d been on a run for the last few days and came home to a moving van in my driveway and a shitload of boxes in my house.

“What did you
expect
, Clink?” she paused in her packing, dropping the stack of dishtowels into the empty box, before placing her hands on her hips. “For me to just stay put and shut up while you’re out fucking your way through the east coast?”

I rubbed my chin, taking in her words. “You know the deal. I said I’d take care of you, of both of you. I’ve been holding up my end of the bargain.”

She laughed bitterly. “Well, maybe that’s not good enough for me anymore. You come home and play daddy whenever it’s convenient. You plop me on the back of your bike whenever you need to put on some little show for your club and you fuck me whenever you’re too tired to go find some club whore.”

“So? It’s not like you have it bad! You have it better than most women could hope for.” I knew I had a losing argument.

She was right. I did whatever necessary to keep busy outside the house, and the main reason I came home at all was for Brendan. He was only a baby and didn’t really understand when I was around or not, but I knew he needed his pop.

“You don’t love me anymore, Clink.” She relaxed her shoulders and lowered her voice. “I don’t know if you ever really did. But,” she swallowed hard, “I deserve that much. And so do you. I want you to be happy. I want you to let me go.”

I bit hard, clenching my teeth together. “My boy….”

Beth stepped closer. “He’ll still be your son. You can see him whenever you want. I’ll even have him come stay with you when he gets older. But…” she shook her head, “you know he belongs with me. We could do this the hard way—you know a judge would give me that. Your life isn’t for kids, Clink. He’ll be better off with me.”

She was right on one point. A judge
would
probably have given him to her, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t make it damn hard for her. I had enough resources at my disposal to tie her up in court for years. I could have bankrupted her and made her life a living hell.

Part of me wanted to do that, to hurt her the way she was hurting me. I had tried my best to do right by her. She was nothing but a little wannabe Sweet Butt when I gave her a few nights of my time. She told me she was pregnant and I promised to take care of her.

I moved her into my place and set her up so she wanted for nothing. I even tried to love her. For my kid’s sake, I tried to love her, but it just wasn’t there. She knew something was off, and was itching for me to put a ring on her finger… even tried to trick me into knocking her up again to get the job done.

When she finally figured out that wasn’t gonna happen, she started to get damn bitter about it. Coming home to her was no fucking picnic, and I did whatever I needed to do to avoid it.

“I don’t know what to say.” It was true. I didn’t know what to say.

She taped up the box and began working on the next. “I’m not looking for you to say anything. I’m leaving. I’m not asking for your permission.”

“When?”

She looked me dead in the eye. “Two hours. I left my new address and number on the fridge.”

Fuck
. This is really happening.

“Where’s my boy?”

For the very first time since I stepped through that door tonight, she actually had the decency to show some hint of emotion. “He’s napping.”

I didn’t stick around long enough for the temporary bit of humanity in her to affect me. The path was littered with boxes and shipping containers, but I managed to sidestep them quickly and opened the shut door to the nursery as quietly as I could. I shut it behind me to ensure that the next few moments were private.

Brendan was the soundest sleeper I’d ever met, especially since everyone had warned me what a nightmare babies could be in the that department. He could sleep through the night at a month old and was never one to wake easily.

I knew I shouldn’t stir him, but instinct took over and I needed to hold him once more. I needed to protect him and comfort him as best I could for those last few moments.

I remembered my own dad, how I idolized him, how he could do nothing wrong in my eyes. Looking down at the small child in my arms with his chubby little cheeks all flushed from sleep, and his round legs dangling from my arms, my heart was bursting with so much emotion.

The rocking chair over in the corner by the window was comfortable enough, as we moved back and forth. I stared at my son. I could see my nose, which was in fact my ma’s nose. The pointed little peak of hair by his brow was just like my own grandad’s. The shape of his tiny fingernails were boxy like mine, too.

He was of my flesh, my bone. He was the greatest gift the universe had ever given me, and I didn’t deserve him… I knew that now just as I had known it then.

I had failed him.

I could have tried harder. I could have done a million and one fucking things different, I’m sure.

“Hey, bud,” I whispered into the dark to the sleeping child in my arms. “I know you’re not going to remember all the things I’m gonna tell you. The first moment I saw you, screaming your lungs out in the doctor’s hands, I knew you were my boy. That night, when we brought you home, I sat with you in my arms in this very chair and I talked to you just like this. I told you all the things we were gonna do, all the ways I was gonna be the dad to you that my own pop was to me. I was gonna make you proud to call me your dad. You were gonna grow up with everything you needed to become whatever you chose. I promised you that, and I’m still gonna keep those promises. But, it’s just gonna be a little different now.”

I swallowed hard. “I’m not gonna be there every day. I won’t get to know you the way I wanted, the way you deserve. But I swear, I will never let anything bad happen to you. And all you have to do… is call me and I’ll be there for you in a flash. I know this isn’t goodbye—it’ll
never
be goodbye for us.”

I lift him to kiss his warm little forehead. “We’ll be together again, I swear it to you. And until then, I’m going to work every single day to deserve to be the guy you call pop.”

~*~

NOW

I step over to make room for Ma to reach into the wooden drawer I had been unintentionally blocking. She rummages through it with the metal clanking echoing from the boxy space.

“No cwusts, Gwam,” Brendan calls out from the round kitchen table where Ma and I had our little heart-to-heart last night.

The pink rollers in her hair make me smirk as we lock eyes, laughing silently at his request. I never liked crusts myself as a kid, and would just stare at the sandwich on the plate until the situation was fixed. My boy is getting a head start by specifying his preference early.

Smart kid
.

I leave Ma to her cutting, turning to the little wooden key rack on the wall nearest the phone. The single silver key hanging on an old, worn, black leather Harley Davidson key ring calls to me.

Ma sees my look from the corner of her eye. “Be safe,” she says.

I kiss her on the temple, under the largest of her plastic hair rollers, and clasp my fingers around the cold metal. Brendan wiggles anxiously for his egg sandwich in fresh clothes and damp hair from his bath.

I thread my fingers through his cold, shaggy hair and shake them around. “Be good for your Gram, son.”

I know the two of them have a lot of catching up to do, so I leave them to it. Ma’s gonna spoil that kid something fierce.

The late morning sun is bright and warm on my skin. The light breeze picks up around me and brings with it all the scents of what makes this place great. The freshly mowed grass, the colorful flowers in Ma’s garden, and the wild ones further away. There’s a small fishing pond just down the road, and you never think the natural scent of it would travel this far, but I swear I smell it.

I breathe it all in deep, the freshness and simplicity of it that I want my boy to soak up while we’re here.

The old wood of the barn even has its own unique smell to it. I swing open one of the large doors and let the old, worn hinges do the rest. They creak and moan as the aged door is stretched wide. The gravel crunches under the foot of my riding boots as I slowly step forward.

The blue tarp hugging the curves and contours of the machine in the middle of the space grabs my attention. I close my eyes and listen to the sounds in my memory. The first time I heard the engine of this bike start, I remember the thrill it shot through me.

I had practically known since birth that I would be a biker like my pop. The first time I heard the deep grumbling of this bike was the first time I actually felt the need to ride deep in my soul.

Pop upgraded to this bike when I was about six. He brought it home late one night, and I can still remember the look of pride on his face when he’d shown it to me.

He’d worked hard, bought the bike new, and treated it like his sultry mistress. She was bathed, stroked, caressed and whispered to on a regular basis. He even gave it a name. It was Marilyn, after Marilyn Monroe, the second sexiest woman alive according to pop.

The first, he always made sure to add, was Ma.

I pinch the center of the material and pull hard, whipping the cloth tarp away, exposing the old bike. I get an instant hard-on.

I haven’t ridden in days, and the need is strong. My own bike and I are like one, but this bike, my pop’s old bike…. it’s like the epitomy of riding experiences. I grab the choke, press hard and kick start the bike until those familiar grumbles rattle through me, making me feel alive.

The bike has been sitting for a couple of weeks untouched, but it’s as ready as a virgin on prom night. I pay one of the local kids to pop over every few weeks to check on it. This bike is my pop’s legacy. It’s kept like a shrine and one day long after I’m gone, I hope Brendan will care for it just as I do.

I take a deep breath, rev the engine, filling the old cavernous barn with the grumbling and let go, taking off down the drive to clear my head.

The only protection from the whipping wind against my skin are my shades and my black t-shirt. It feels good, though, the stinging scratching against the flesh of my arms, my neck, my forehead.

I feel the strength and the power of the of engine as I open the throttle and let the bike have the freedom it’s been deprived of for too long. Each turn, each swerve, the tires hug the asphalt, making love to it in its own way.

There are some things that are meant for one another, things that are simply not complete alone. Things like the cut I wear and the tat that mirrors it underneath, on my flesh. The power of the bike between my thighs and the open road below, each specifically built for the other. My cock and….

No.

How is it that I can’t even manage to get through this ride without my thoughts finding their way back to her?

I’ve always kept a separation between the man I am on this bike and the man I am off it. They never mix, they never cross. Yet today, right now, she’s seeping in and shattering that.

I’ve gotten as far away as I can, both in body and, I thought, in mind, but it’s not enough. I’m miles and miles away from her, yet in some ways, closer than ever… because I can’t escape her.

The softness of her voice as it soothes me, lies or truth, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s her that speaks them. The light that flickers in her eyes when she watches me fuck her, taking every inch and every ounce like air needed to live. She needed me as much as
I
needed her to need me.

The first time I brought her to the clubhouse, no matter her underlying reasons, she somehow found her way into my soul. She didn’t know it then, neither did I, because it was the smallest and most subtle of things that did it. It was just something I felt, something I needed more of… like a drug.

I was sitting at the bar, high on a stool. She sauntered out from the back, helping Lil’s recover after we had gotten her back from the Slayers. Her hair was bouncing with each step her gorgeous legs took in my direction. Those same legs that were wrapped around me just hours before in the dark.

Her pink, plump lips were pouted, composing herself as she strutted through the crowd like a pro, aware that they all knew what she and I had done in my bed. Those were the same lips that were wrapped around my cock and that kissed my mouth, talked dirty in my ear, and screamed my name loud enough for the whole clubhouse (sleeping or not) to hear.

Her tits were pointed up, her shoulders back, holding her head high and not giving one shit what any of those other eyes watching her might think. She was only watching me.

It was supposed to be a one-night stand. That’s all I was looking for, all I wanted, but it was just a small exchange of words that somehow sealed our fate. I told her I’d give her a ride and to just sit tight until I was good and ready to leave after having a beer with my boys.

She looked me square in the eyes and told me
no
. She might have actually been the first woman to ever actually say
no
to me.