“So I’m taking you up on your offer,” I declared. “However, the generosity of it makes me uncomfortable, so I’ll be doing what I can to give back. And since you started all this, you’re up first. You need your room cleaned because no one should live like this.” I threw out the Windex bottle. “So I’m cleaning your room.”
“I don’t want you to clean my room,” he returned.
“I didn’t want people I don’t know to offer assistance I need. And further I didn’t want to have a life where I was in a position that I was forced to take that assistance no matter how embarrassing my needing it was. But we can’t always get what we want,” I retorted.
His scowl got scarier. “What’s happenin’ to you is not embarrassing.”
I held his eyes and quieted my voice. “You’re wrong about that, Joker.”
His jaw flexed.
I cleared my throat and straightened my shoulders, taking us back to the point. “But I’m taking it and doing that. I’m also giving back. With you first.”
“You’re not cleaning my room,” he declared.
I shook my head. “Too late. It’s half done.”
That wasn’t exactly the truth. His room was really filthy. I still had a lot of work to do. Also, I had to cart his stuff to the Laundromat but I had a shift so I’d have to do that the next day. Therefore, I wouldn’t be completely done until tomorrow.
“I don’t want you goin’ through my stuff,” he kept at it.
I felt warmth creep up my neck but I ignored it and what he said, and returned, “Speaking of your stuff. I found an envelope full of money in a pair of your jeans that were on the floor in the bathroom. It’s there.” I motioned to his dresser. “And I’ll, uh… commend you on your obvious commitment to safe sex. Though, the unwrapped prophylactics are now in the drawer of your nightstand, not scattered among the wrappers on top. Easier access since you won’t have to sort through the wrappers to find a new one.”
At that, he looked fit to be tied, or fit to tie me, and he leaned slightly toward me.
“That right there is why—”
“I’m doing it, Joker,” I whispered. “You can be all scary and scowl at me and get angry, but I’m doing it. I’m doing whatever I have to do to feel better about what you’re all doing for me. I have to.” I drew in breath and finished, “And I’m asking you to let me.”
His jaw flexed again.
I watched his jaw flex, thinking two things.
One, for some reason, I found that appealing.
Two, I didn’t feel even a little bad about lying by omission by not including the fact that I was there to do other things as well. Those including being around him, attempting to flirt with him, and doing everything I could to get him to kiss me again and/or ask me out on a date (with that last, I was hoping for and).
Of course, I did want to give back to him and the Club. Definitely.
It was just that I wanted other things too.
We stared at each other, and this lasted a long time. Long enough for me to have a strong urge to end the staring contest by running to him and throwing myself in his arms, but this time, not allowing him to let me go.
Unfortunately, when I was just about ready to do that, he broke the contest, asking, “My clothes in those cases?”
“Yes,” I answered, lifting my hand with the paper towel in it, palm out. “And I’m doing your laundry and I’m not taking any guff from you about it.”
“You got a washer and dryer at your house?”
“No, I’m taking it to the Laundromat.”
He went scary again. “Butterfly, you are not payin’ to do my laundry.”
“I absolutely am,” I returned.
“You gotta do it to make your shit feel better. Do it. But there’s a washer and dryer here. Off the side hall, at the back.”
“That’s thirty-five cents,” I told him, not sharing my relief that they had a washer and dryer. That would save me tons of time, not to mention money.
He crossed his arms on his chest. “You do know with this shit you’re pullin’ that no way in fuck I’m ever gonna stop and help a woman change her tire again.”
“That’s fifty cents.”
He stared at me.
Then he turned on his boot and stalked to the door, muttering, “Fuck me.”
“Sixty cents!” I yelled at his back.
But he was gone.
I stared at the door, wondering how that went.
There were no kisses or even heated glances (outside angry heat, but that didn’t count). He didn’t even act like he was talking to a woman he’d kissed (thoroughly) just the day before.
That was bad.
But he’d given in relatively easily to me cleaning his space and doing his laundry.
However, this could be so he wouldn’t have to be around me in order to fight about it.
That would also be bad.
But it could be he liked the idea of me hanging around because he liked the idea of me being around. It also could be, since he obviously didn’t have anyone to look after him, and didn’t look after himself, he liked the idea of someone doing that.
Before I could make my decision about which it was, good or bad, I focused on the door I was staring at distractedly.
One of the men who’d been sitting with Joker at the bar the day before was standing in it. He was older than Joker. Stockier. He had slivers of gray in his dark brown hair that was shorter than Joker’s but still messy. He had what I was approximating as nine weeks of stubble, also silvered with gray.
He also had his eyes on me.
“Uh, hi,” I called.
“Hey,” he replied.
“I saw you yesterday but I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Carissa.”
“High.”
“Um…” I tipped my head to the side, wondering why he was greeting me again. “Hi.”
“No, babe. That’s my name. High. With a g and h.”
“Oh!” I grinned at him. “High. Right, hello, High. Nice to meet you.”
He didn’t return that sentiment.
He gave me a look that made me brace and said in a quiet voice, “Don’t give up.”
I felt my head jerk in confusion. “On Joker’s room?”
“On Joker,” he stated.
I felt my eyes go round.
He disappeared.
* * *
The next day, I walked to the door of the Compound wondering if I’d made the right decision.
I’d come before my shift at LeLane’s, and after I did what I had to do, I had to go straight to LeLane’s. So I was in my LeLane’s uniform of polo, khakis, and Converse (though, LeLane’s didn’t require Converse, that was my nod to style because everyone knew Converse rocked).
Joker had mentioned he’d thought my dress was cute and my heels were sexy. I didn’t have an excess of cute dresses and shoes (well, I did, but none of them fit me anymore), but I was a cute-dress-and-heels type of girl. I had more than just the butterfly one that fit me.
But this was me. The new me. A single mom, grocery store clerk in khakis and Converse. And if he asked me out on a date and eventually kissed me again, this would be the woman he’d be kissing.
I hadn’t been about me. Not for a long time. Maybe never. I had been coasting in life for so long, I actually didn’t know who me was.
I just knew right now most of me was being a mom and a grocery store clerk.
So the LeLane’s uniform it was.
I threw open the door and kept walking in as my eyes adjusted to the dim.
They’d just done that when I heard, “Fuck, you movin’ in?”
I turned my head right and saw Joker at the bar with three other people. One was the lanky guy from the first time I’d been there. The other two were a man and woman. Both looked about my age. Both looked a lot like the goateed man I met the first time I was there. They had to be brother and sister. Though, she was with the lanky guy. I knew this by the casual way his arm was flung around h
er shoulders.
They all were outside the bar, Joker was behind it.
“I believe the tally is now seventy cents,” I returned.
Joker put both hands to the bar, spread wide, leaned his weight into them, and dropped his head.
He was handsome even in a pose of frustration.
“Seventy cents?” the girl asked, and I stopped taking in Joker’s handsome and looked to her.
“He owes me a nickel for every curse word, a dime for every bad one,” I explained.
At my explanation, without hesitation, the girl burst into laughter. It took a moment for the two guys to process it, in fact, they looked so surprised by this, I wasn’t sure they were going to process it. But once they did, they joined her.
Joker lifted his head and glowered at them before he turned that glower to me.
“Clean sheets, clean clothes, Butterfly,” he stated irately. “So you’re here today why?”
I stopped by their huddle and I did it with my gaze on him.
“First, would you introduce me?” I requested.
“Shy, Tab, Rush,” he said shortly and rudely. “Now why you here?”
I ignored his rude introductions and looked to the group.
“We didn’t officially meet. I’m Shy,” lanky guy said, also ignoring Joker’s rudeness.
“Hey,” I replied.
“Tab,” the girl said. “Tabby, Tabitha, take your pick.”
I nodded, smiling, “Lovely to meet you. I’m Carissa.”
She smiled back.
“Rush,” the last one said. “Tab’s my sister. Tack’s my dad.”
I nodded again. “Right, I can see the family resemblance. Lovely to meet you too.”
He smiled as well.
I was already smiling.
“Yo,” Joker called and I looked his way again. “You wanna answer my question?”
I put my hand on the bar. “I’m getting the impression you don’t want me here.”
“Seein’ as yesterday you went through my shit, all a’ it, I’m just needin’ to know what to brace for today,” he replied.
“I hardly need to clean your room every day, Joker,” I retorted.
“Least there’s that,” he muttered.
“I’m actually here to meet Big Petey,” I shared. “Tyra phoned and said he looks after her sons and might be willing to take on Travis at a reduced rate to what my daycare center charges.”
“Reduced,” Rush muttered and my eyes went to him.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “It’d help out a lot. Daycare is very expensive.”
“Big Petey loves kids,” Tabby told me. “Ty-Ty is my stepmom, and Ride and Cut are my baby bros. Pete looks after them all the time. He loves it. They love him.”
I had to admit, that was a huge relief. I needed a break on the daycare center fees and therefore was there to explore that option, but I had to admit to some trepidation about what biker childcare would entail.
Though her little brothers’ names surprised me. They shouldn’t have, considering the ones I’d heard before, Joker, High, Shy, Rush, etc., but they did.
“Just so you’re prepared, Butterfly, reduced means free,” Joker said.
I looked to him. “Sorry?”
“Reduced would be free,” Shy reiterated. “You can offer, but Pete won’t take your money.”
Not this again.
“But—” I started.
“Don’t fight it,” Tabby said in a soft voice that had a tone in it that got my total attention. “He’s old enough to be a grandfather, but his daughter died before she could give him grandbabies. He loves kids. Loved his daughter. It messed him up losing her, as it would. But it wasn’t helped that when he lost her, any chance of his legacy died with her. He’s a woman’s man, and I mean that in the sense you would guess I mean, but also in the sense that he’s a man with one child, that child was a girl, he loved her to pieces, and she’s gone. He’ll like you. He’ll wanna help out like he’d wanna help his daughter if she needed it. And if he offers it, you can give him lip for a while, but accept it. You’re doin’ more for him than he is for you. Seriously.”
My voice was also soft when I replied, “That’s very sad. And I thank you for sharing it. But he really would be doing more for me than I would for him.”
“Not to be blunt, babe, but you have a live son, he has a dead daughter. Do you think that’s true?” Tabby asked.
I looked into her eyes a moment, feeling my heart twist at her words, before I whispered, “Point taken.”
She grinned. “Good.”
“How’s the car runnin’?” Shy asked.
I turned to him and smiled brightly. “Good. Thank you for that. It was really—”
“Don’t mention it,” he cut me off, firm but gentle.
I shut up.
“When you get your kid back?” Rush asked.
“Monday,” I answered.
“We’re havin’ a thing here, Compound, Saturday night. You’re welcome,” he told me and my world lit.
A thing, I was guessing, meant a party.
A party that Joker would likely attend. And no one could be surly at a party.
“Really?” I asked excitedly.
I would have sworn I heard Joker make a noise like a swallowed grunt but I ignored him.
“Yeah,” Rush answered over Joker’s noise.
“That’d be so cool, you could come,” Tabby said. “It gets rowdy but it’s a great time. And we girls need to let our hair down, you hear me?”
I heard her, she was right in front of me.
But after I heard her, it hit me and my world went dark.
“I work the afternoon shift. I don’t get off until late.”
She grinned again. “Babe, this is a biker party. It’ll go until everyone is hooked up or passed out. Come whenever.”
I had a feeling their rowdy would be well beyond my rowdy since I’d never really done rowdy. But I also hoped Joker would be there, and in a party mood, so I was going to have an open mind and I was most definitely going to show.
“Do you work every day?”
I turned my head to Joker since he asked the question.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Every day?” he pushed.
“Yes,” I repeated. Then explained, “Mostly. See, my manager, Sharon, is super nice. She tries to schedule me for as many days on as she can when Aaron has Travis, so I can have my days off when I have him so I can save on daycare and I want to spend my time with him. And in return, I take afternoon and evening shifts when Travis is with his dad because people prefer day shifts.”
“So when you don’t have your kid, when do you have a life?” Joker asked, sounding strangely annoyed. Or more annoyed than he already had been.
“My life is Travis,” I answered and something moved over his face that I didn’t like, knowing about what his mom did to him. But I did my best to ignore it since he likely wouldn’t like me to make note of it, especially in company, and kept speaking. “And anyway, it’s only eight and a half hours a day, so it isn’t like I’m always there. Except the overtime,” I mumbled the last bit. “Everyone can use it and Sharon’s fair, but she throws a good amount my way because I need it.”
He stared at me, still looking annoyed, and I stared back, not annoyed even a little bit.
I wasn’t because you didn’t get annoyed for a girl you didn’t like and possibly want to ask out on a date which would end in a kiss (I hoped).
So as he stared at me, I stared back. I also smiled brightly.
His eyes dropped to my mouth and he looked even more annoyed.
My smile got bigger as my belly felt warm.
At that point, the door to the Compound opened and I unfortunately had to look away from annoyed-biker-handsome Joker toward the door.
“Hey, Pete!” Tabby cried to the man lumbering in.
I said nothing.
Instead, I made the instant decision that, if he would look after Travis, I’d let hi
m.
This was not because he had on a beat-up leather vest over a black T-shirt that had been washed so many times it was gray. It was also not because his jeans were faded, too big on him (which was a feat, he was not a small man), and had stains on them, though the jeans were clean. It was further not because he had a very long goatee, stubble on his cheeks, bushy sideburns and a mass of lead-gray hair pulled back in a ponytail at his nape. Lastly, it was not because he had a gut that shouted I love beer!
No, it was because he had kind eyes and a face that lit up when those eyes hit Tabby. The overall look might be scary to some, but to me, he looked like Biker Santa Claus.
“Hey, darlin’, how you doin’?” he called to Tabby.
“I’m good, Pete. This is Carissa.”
Big Petey trudged to me and did it with a grin and beefy hand lifted my way. “Figured you were. Hey, girl.”
I took his hand. Its calloused warmth closed around mine firm but not hard.
Yes, I was going to let him look after my son.
“Hey,” I replied. “Nice to meet you.”
He gave my hand a squeeze before he let it go and leaned into the bar. “Your asshole still got your boy?”
I assumed correctly by the a-word that he meant Aaron. “Uh, yes, until Monday.”
“Bummer, darlin’,” he muttered.
“Agreed,” I muttered back.
He gave me a grin. “Tyra keeps her boys with her in the office a lot but I also got ’em a lot so your li’l bugger’ll have company.”
“Uh… is that too much for you?” I asked.
“I’ll amend,” he declared. “Tyra keeps her boys with her in the office a lot and her old man likes their boys with him a lot, so I have ’em a lot but not a lot so your boy will have company but also he and me’ll have alone time.”
“I think it’s important he socialize,” I told him.
“He’ll get that, seein’ as Ride and Cut’s brother and sister come ’round to see ’em and every brother and their old ladies in this Club ain’t exactly introverts. It’ll be good.”
“It sure sounds like it will,” I agreed.
“Gotta see your kid takes to me and you’re good with how. We’ll set it, you bring him here when you got him again. Me and him’ll have a meet and greet.”
I smiled. “That sounds excellent.”