Hawke (16 page)

seventeen

Tyler

I thought a ride meant finally being on the back of Hawke’s bike, but I was wrong.

It meant taking Kirk’s old red truck.

Before we left Hawke removed the license plate on the back of it, and I should have been wary about that, but nothing about the guys in the club surprised me anymore. They were outlaws, and whatever Hawke was intending on doing was going to be illegal. That part was obvious.

I hopped inside the truck just as he got behind the wheel. The clunker turned on and he peeled out of the parking lot, stopping just before the road to lean over.

I tensed the second his hand brushed past my lap and grabbed at the seatbelt. God, a tiny touch and I was still sensitive all over.

He tugged on it with a knowing smirk and said, “Put this on, Ty.”

“It doesn’t click in,” I replied, showing him. “You think I haven’t driven his piece of shit before? We should take someone else’s car. Like Jonny. He’s got a sweet race car.”

“We need to look unassuming.”

“What are you planning on doing?”

He turned the corner and accelerated. The truck sounded like it was churning metal under my feet. Ugh, not a good sign.

“There’s this guy that’s just started showing up at the club every Friday,” Hawke explained, frowning. “He’s been spikin’ drinks and takin’ girls home and then dumpin’ them in alleyways.”

My heart jumped. “Killing them?”

“Nah, they’re alive, but they’re bruised and hurt and…obviously violated. Anyways, a couple girls kept comin’ around the last couple weeks and tellin’ Borden about it.”

“He wouldn’t care.”

Hawke shot me a severe look. “Of course he fuckin’ cares. Borden doesn’t tolerate rape, Tyler. He may be a brutal motherfucker, but he’s still got a conscience.”

Well, shit, I didn’t think Hawke would get so passionate about defending the bastard who took him away from the club and me.

“So why haven’t you guys been on him sooner?” I asked, moving away from the topic of Borden.

“Nobody knows what he looks like. He doesn’t chat the girls up. Doesn’t go near ‘em actually. He just slips shit in when he passes by and stalks them ‘til they’re blacking out someplace.”

“Creep.”

“Yeah, well, Linda was on top of it tonight.”

“Linda?”

“The club manager. She said they spotted a man puttin’ some powdery shit in a woman’s drink. He’s hanging back and waiting.”

“Why don’t they stop him?”

“I left so quickly, I didn’t leave anyone in charge. I take care of security, and I’m gone two nights and this shit’s exploded in my face. Plus, I wanna take care of the fucker myself.”

“What are you going to do to him, Hawke?”

Hawke’s grip on the steering wheel tightened and his teeth clenched. “I’m gonna teach him a lesson, Ty.”

Hawke had a soft spot for taking care of women. I was sure it had something to do with his mother. He’d been so close to her. I still went to see her from time to time with Hector, and god, she was a stubborn and strong woman, closer in nature to Hawke than Hector. She’d always ask Hector what Hawke was up to, looking immensely agitated when she waited for him to respond. Hector would always assure her Hawke was alright, but she’d fidget anyway and mutter prayers under her breath.

From what I heard, she had a very trying life married to Red, the former president who’d died years before my old man had over a deal gone bad. Red had been a very cruel man, never once showing the club any kind of soft spot because, in my opinion, I never believed he had one. But from the little Hector had told me, his mother Adella had grown up on the streets, even alluding to the possibility she’d been whoring herself before Red came along and took her for himself.

Though I’d never gotten a straight story, it made sense why Hawke never disrespected women. Back when he was president, there was a lot of prostitution in town and the women were often found brutally beaten, and not just by their customers, but by their pimps too who had taken most of their earnings for themselves. There wasn’t a corner in town that wasn’t talking about it, and when it got back to Hawke he was livid.

I remembered my father’s face when they got ready to ride out and “take care of it”. I’d never seen him so dark in my life.

“These women need protection,” he’d told Hawke. “They’re not all druggies; they’re mothers or homeless, barely scraping by. We can help them.”

It was the first time the club had gotten themselves involved in a violent circle they weren’t trying to profit from.

It was what made Hawke unlike all the other presidents before him and solidified the respect the club showed him…and the town too.

They eradicated the pimps and put the women in a motel they owned. They made the women keep a log of dangerous costumers and they sorted them out every time there was a complaint. There was a whole system put in place to ensure they didn’t get hurt, and the system worked.

Until Hawke left.

It fell apart under Hector’s control, and the pimps returned, hiding in shadows as they whored women out like strips of meat. The problem was more fixed in place now, and the women no longer turned to the club, because the club had failed them (and Hector didn’t concern himself about it).

The thought made me a little bitter. I looked at him, brows knitted together and said, “You realize we have women in need of saving here too.”

He caught my expression and sighed. “Tyler, did it ever occur to you that maybe I’m just not interested in going back to that life? The rules have changed, and the club’s gone soft. The men are sloppy. Hector’s recruited at least a dozen assholes who only carry the patch because they think it’s fucking cool, but the second they have bullets flyin’ past their heads they’re gonna cower back.”

“You can fix that.”

“You just can’t let this go, can you?”

“No.”

He shot me a strange look. “Why do you believe in me, Tyler?”

I stared out the window, getting lost in the streets as they blazed on by. Why did I believe in him? I gripped the seatbelt and shrugged. “Because you’re the best man I ever met, and…and among other things, you make me feel safe.”

I could feel the heat of his eyes on me, but I couldn’t meet them. No way. He would see that I cared for him deeply. Had always cared for him. I didn’t want to be so utterly vulnerable. It was terrifying.

“I don’t think you realize, Ty, what I would become if I went back to that,” he finally said, his voice indiscernible. “You wouldn’t like me as president this time around.”

“Why?”

“I’d have to be unforgiving and do things – violent things so others wouldn’t cross us.”

“I understand.”

“No…you don’t.”

I mulled that over, frowning. I’d seen the club do bad things.

How bad could Hawke be?

“This piece of shit needs fuel,” he grumbled minutes later, already turning us into an empty gas station. “Be right back, babe.”

He got out and strolled in there. I watched him carefully, checking out that hard back and nice ass. Even when he used his hand to open the door, I kept thinking how nice his fingers felt inside me and my face burned just thinking it.

I thought having a taste of him would have quenched my want at least a little bit, but instead it made it stronger and more urgent.

Seeking a distraction so I wouldn’t babysit the entrance door, I opened the glovebox compartment as I waited and rummaged through papers and wrappers and…women’s underwear? What the fuck?

“Ew, Kirk,” I whispered in disgust, shutting the compartment immediately.

That old dude had underwear in his car.

Used underwear judging by the crumpled look of them.

Underwear!

With roses on one and…and hearts on another.

Ew. Ew. Ew.

This was the kind of disturbing shit I wouldn’t miss about club life.

I wiped my fingers on my overalls, shuddering in my seat when I heard a sudden smash. My breath escaped my lips in a
whoosh
as I looked back at the convenience store.

The entrance door was obliterated. There was a man on the ground, hurt. Hawke stepped over him and walked casually back to the car with two cans of energy drinks in his hands.

“What the hell, Hawke?” I shouted after he slid into his seat. “What happened?”

“I had to take care of him,” he replied, barely looking at me with that stoic face of his as he set our drinks in the cup holders. “Couldn’t miss the opportunity.”

“What are you talking about? Why did you have to take care of some guy?”

“Because that asshole’s been bragging about bagging you, babe, and that shit’s no longer acceptable.”

My whole body stopped moving. I stared at him, horrified and confused, before I turned my sights back to the man on the ground slowly getting up. When I saw his face, I let out a groan and smacked my forehead against the window.

It was my douchebag ex-boyfriend from high school.

I didn’t even know he was talking about me. How the hell did Hawke – someone who didn’t even live in this town anymore – know something that personal?

Why are you even surprised, Tyler?

Hawke started the car again.

“Thought you had to fill up,” I said blankly, already knowing the answer.

“Didn’t need to, babe,” he replied, putting us back on the road.

*

“What’d you see in that spider lookin’ boy anyway?” he asked me ten minutes later.

He’d gotten some of that energy fueled drink in him and looked a lot more alert and less dark and broody. I was still trying to process what happened when he asked it. I looked away from the night sky and at him. “Maybe I thought he was interesting.”

Hawke chuckled wryly. “Fuckin’ hell, you gotta try harder than that to help me understand. You lost your virginity to that sack of shit, Ty.” His lips pressed down hard and his nose flared. “That fuck didn’t deserve it.”

I dug my fingers into the dashboard paint and peeled away at it. “What do you expect me to say?”

“Did he force himself on you? Because you’re too sweet for that kind of boy.”

“That kind of boy?”

“Horny type that probably lasts a minute in the back of his car.”

I rolled my eyes. “No, he didn’t force himself on me. As if. I’d have ripped his balls off if he had. He was nice.”

“Nice?” Hawke repeated, skeptically. “He used you to try and get into the club. Does that sound like
nice
?”

“No, Hawke, obviously not.”

“Were you desperate for attention? I just don’t get it.”

“There’s that word again,” I snapped, angrily. “
Desperate
. You think I was desperate for that guy?”

“Yeah –”

“Fuck you, Hawke. I was not desperate. I was
curious
. I wanted to know if I could feel a certain way to a guy that wasn’t…”

He glanced at me curiously. “That wasn’t what?”

I hesitated and shook my head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“That wasn’t me?” he prodded, keenly. “Is that what you were going to say?”

I didn’t answer.

“It sounds like you were going to say it. It was me, right?”

“Don’t get all egotistical.”

He laughed lightly. “Fuck, I’m not egotistical, but the way you look at me, Tyler, it makes me feel like I’m Tom fuckin’ Hardy.”

I hid my smile and muttered, “You have no idea.”

“So why him then?”

I didn’t answer.

“Tyler,” he pressed, “I’m just tryin’ to understand, babe. I really want to know this. It’s been sittin’ in my head for two years now. I know you had this crush thing on me for a while, and then outta nowhere they’re telling me you’re with some high school jock. I always thought that was odd and unlike you. I just wanted to hear it from you instead of the guys.”

I dropped my hands from the dashboard and sighed, resignedly. “It’s not a fascinating story. I was curious about boys, okay? I was a teenager and…you don’t know what it’s like being a girl, Hawke. You get laughed at if you’re fat, called anorexic if you’re skinny, told you’re ugly if you’re wearing too much make-up, and ugly again if you aren’t. You never win with that crowd. I was ostracized, and I wanted a connection outside of the club. When I hung out with Rohan, it felt nice, and I’d started to really explore myself around that time.”

“Explore yourself,” he repeated, inquisitively.

“I…touched myself… and the more I did it, the more I wanted to be kissed and touched by someone else. I wanted a boyfriend. I wanted to know what it felt like to have someone inside me, and…Rohan seemed sweet enough.”

He nodded in surprise. “That was a simple answer.”

“Because my needs were simple.”

“Was he good? Did he make you moan the way I made you moan in that bedroom, Tyler?”