But my heart squeezed.
Didn’t he like pie?
Didn’t everyone like pie?
Oh no! What if he didn’t like pie?
“Does Joker like anything?” greasy jeans guy asked.
“I bet, today, he’s gonna like butterflies,” lanky guy noted.
“Today, I like butterflies,” greasy jeans guy declared.
I cleared my throat.
Lanky guy’s lips quirked again just as he jerked his chin to the right and said, “Compound.”
“Sorry?” I asked.
“Joker’s in the Compound, babe. Building over there.” He swung his clipboard in that direction and then smiled a highly appealing but definitely meaningful smile. “Go right on in. He’s not out front, someone in there will get him for you.”
I looked where he was indicating and saw a large, long building that ran the entire length of the property from the back of the auto store to well beyond the garage. It had an overhang along the front, picnic tables under it (five of them, precisely), a big barrel grill to one end, and four kegs with taps looking like they were ready for use sat against the wall of the building, close to the grill. Last, there were a number of motorcycles parked in formation at the front.
There was also a set of double doors.
I turned my eyes back to the men.
“Thanks!” I called on another bright smile, ignored the strangeness they were making me feel and my inability to understand if it was a good strangeness or a bad one, and then I moved toward the Compound, carrying my pie in front of me with both hands, acutely aware they were watching me.
It was a long walk, and when I made it to the end, balanced the pie, grabbed the handle to one of the doors, pulled it open, and chanced a look back, I saw what I had a feeling I’d see.
Not a single one of them had moved, and their eyes were on me.
More strangeness invaded but even if it was quite a distance, they had to know I was looking at them. So I lifted a hand to wave before I slid through the door.
Only the coveralls guy waved back.
I rebalanced the pie in both hands, took two steps in, and stopped because I had to due to the fact I couldn’t see a thing.
The place was dark. After the bright Denver sun, my eyes needed time to adjust.
This took time, neon beer signs finally coming into focus. Then more.
None of it good.
Tatty furniture. Pool tables. A long sweeping bar. Flags on the walls like the one flying over the auto store under the American flag. Pictures also on the walls. Harley-Davidson stickers, again stuck to the walls. It wasn’t tidy. It wasn’t even clean.
It was just scary.
“Yo!” I heard and turned my head right.
I had company.
At the curved part of the sweep of the bar, a man was standing, leaning into his arm on the bar. He had a goatee. He was large. He was rough but nonetheless very good-looking. He had a lovely redheaded woman in a dainty blouse and tight skirt in front of him on a barstool. He was standing very close to her. Although he looked firmly the manly biker yin to her girly classy yang, she clearly didn’t mind this.
Behind the bar was another man with dark, messy hair, a mustache over his lip that also grew down the sides. A patch at the indent in the middle of his lower lip. An adorable baby younger than Travis tucked securely in the curve of his arm, an arm that was decorated in tattoos of dancing flames. And finally, an elegant, tall, stunningly beautiful brunette in the curve of his other arm (which also had flames).
Last, sitting beside the redhead was a black lady in a dress I might sell a kidney for if it was my style (it wasn’t, it was chic, cutting-edge, and sophisticated, I was flirty, ruffles, and sometimes flowers, definitely butterflies, none of this I knew in a glance she’d ever wear, even upon threat of death). Her hair was coiffed to perfection. Her eyes were sharp in a way she could never play dumb and get away with it.
Those eyes, as were all the others, were on me.
And the remains of their fast food lunch was all over the bar.
“Hey!” I called and took several more steps in.
The men’s eyes dropped instantly to my skirt.
The women’s eyes moved directly to each other.
“I’m looking for Joker,” I informed them.
The women’s eyes instantly swiveled back to me.
“Say what?” the black lady asked, sounding like she was choking.
“Um… Joker.” I lifted up my pie. “He helped me out a couple of days ago. I wasn’t in the position to say a proper thank-you then. So I popped by to say it now.”
The second I was done talking, I jumped when the goatee guy turned his head to the side and roared, “Joker!”
“Holy crap,” the redhead breathed.
“This… is… awesome,” the brunette whispered.
“Girl, get your butterfly ass over here,” the black lady ordered. “I need to get a better look.”
Disregarding this order, sensing his movement, my eyes skidded to the mustachioed man to see his head dropped. He was looking to his feet, but his shoulders were shaking.
The baby in his arm gurgled.
The door behind me opened. I turned to it and saw lanky guy entering.
He looked right to the bar. “Couldn’t miss this.”
With a deep biker voice (that was not as attractive as Joker’s, but it was still attractive), that voice shaking like his shoulders, the mustachioed man replied, “Bet not.”
I was confused.
“Sister,” the black lady started and I looked to her. “I see either Joker didn’t communicate the dress code to you or, better option, you chose to ignore it, struttin’ your butterfly ass in here not wearin’ a halter top and daisy dukes.” She tipped her head to me. “Kudos to you. Be who you are. Bikers be damned.”
The redhead and brunette started giggling.
I was still confused. More so now since there were three women among me and none of them were in halter tops and daisy dukes.
“Sorry?” I asked.
“Joker!” the goateed man roared again.
I jumped again.
“What?”
This came barked from the back of the big room, and my eyes flew there to see Joker striding out of a door that appeared to lead to a hall. He did this looking irate.
He also did this looking like a tall, dark, bearded, broad-shouldered, sinister biker.
And I liked the latter.
A whole lot.
My legs started shaking.
“Company,” a gravelly voice declared.
Joker looked to me.
I nearly dropped the pie.
I held on and called a chirpy, “Hey!”
He kept striding in, his eyes glancing toward the bar then back to me. He stopped five feet away.
“I came in to, uh… take care of my tire like you said I should and I made you this.” I extended the pie to him, both hands still under it, a smile I knew was tentative on my face. “To say thanks.”
He looked to the pie. His expression said nothing.
But I was watching him looking at the pie and I again got that feeling I knew him, and not just because two days ago he changed my tire.
It was a weird feeling. A feeling that felt like it was rattling my memory banks.
But it was also tugging at my heartstrings.
I no longer could concentrate on that feeling, or get a lock on why I was certain I knew him, when he stopped looking at the pie and came to me, took the pie, walked to the bar, dumped the dish on it with no ado whatsoever and looked beyond me, to lanky guy.
“They dealin’ with her ride?” he asked.
“Got on it immediately,” lanky guy replied.
“Right.” Joker turned his attention to me. “They’ll sort you out.”
“I… um. Okay,” I replied.
“Pie’s nice,” he went on. “Brothers’ll like it.”
The brothers will like it?
&nbs
p; Wasn’t he going to have any?
Maybe he didn’t like pie.
Darn it!
My phone started ringing in my purse when I said. “Well, that’s good. But—”
“’Preciate you comin’ by,” he cut me off to say. Then he looked to the bar. “Got shit to do.”
I was struggling with my bag on my arm to get to my phone. I was doing this feeling a variety of things. All of them bad.
“Good to see you again, uh…” he trailed off just as my hand closed around my phone and my head jerked up when he did.
“Carissa,” I whispered.
“Yeah, good to see you. Take care,” he returned.
He’d forgotten my name.
That hurt.
It really hurt.
But…
Why?
To hide it, I looked to my phone as I heard a gravelly, “Joker.”
But I wasn’t listening because the caller was Tory.
Aaron had long since delegated communication about most everything to his fiancée. That most everything was always Travis, since that was now all Aaron and I had to talk about.
This was mean. It was also awful. And last, it was very much Aaron.
I hated it.
It wasn’t nice, but I also hated her. She stole my husband. She got to spend every week with him and every other one living my dream, being a family with my baby. She drove a sporty Mercedes Aaron bought for her and was regularly in ads in the paper for local department stores or on TV commercials for local furniture stores, sitting in loungers and on couches, her long, thin legs always bare and stretched out.
She was beautiful. She had glossy dark brown hair that I suspected was glossy without product, which was irritating. She was taller than me by probably five inches. She had a natural grace. And even though I was not even close to over the hill, heck, I couldn’t even see the hill, she was almost four years younger than me in a way that made me feel fifty years older than her.
Obviously, for these reasons and about a thousand others besides, I didn’t want to take her call.
But she had my son.
So I had to take it.
“Excuse me,” I mumbled, knowing probably no one was paying any attention to me. I took a step away, turned my side to the others, and put the phone to my ear. “Tory.”
“Uh, hello, Carissa.”
She didn’t sound right.
My skin started tingling.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
“Okay, don’t freak. It’s all good now. It’s gonna be okay. Aaron didn’t want me to call you because it’s normal, it happens, the doctors say…”
My back shot straight and my heart clenched even as my hand gripped the phone so hard, if I had any attention left to pay to it, it would hurt.
“The doctors?” I whispered.
“Yes, they say he’s gonna be okay. But we had to take Travis to the hospital last night.”
“Hospital?” I screeched, and again, if I had any attention left to pay to it, I would have noticed the feel of the room had gone alert.
“He’s fine. Fine,” she said hurriedly. “It was just croup. So little, working so hard to cough, it was scary but it’s totally okay. The doctors took care of him. Sent him home. Aaron didn’t want me to say anything, but I thought you should know.”
My head was buzzing, my skin still tingling, my heart beating so hard I could feel it thudding in my chest as I said, “I’m coming to your house.”
“No!” she cried. “No, Carissa, don’t do that.”
“He’s my son!” I snapped. “He’s been to the hospital, he doesn’t feel good, so now I’m coming to your house.” I looked up and said to the first person I saw, which was lanky guy. “I need my car. Immediately.”
He was studying me but when I spoke, he jerked up his chin, turned, and jogged out.
“Carissa!” Tory called from my phone. “You cannot come here.”
I was marching to the door as I hissed, “Stop me.”
“Don’t make me regret telling you this. If Aaron knows you’re here without permission, he’s gonna be pissed. At me. But you know it’ll be more at you. And he’ll go off on you, Carissa.”
I had my hand to the door handle but I stopped at her words.
“No judge is going to take away my right to see my child when he’s ill,” I declared.
“Come on, Carissa,” she returned quietly, gently, but swiftly and resolutely. “By now you have to know his father knows a lot of judges and they golf together. They’ll do whatever he wants them to do.”
I closed my eyes and did it tightly, my fingers clutching the door handle even tighter.
I knew that. I’d learned that lesson, so far, twice.
“You can’t come over here,” Tory went on and I opened my eyes, staring unseeing at the door. “I don’t agree with him keeping this from you. I wanted him to call you last night. He refused. He’s at the office now, left Travis and me a little while ago to take some meetings at work. He said he’s going to come back, work from home. I don’t know when that’ll be. I just know if you’re here, he’ll lose it. You know it too. I’m sorry this is the way it is, but we both know it’s the way it is. I’m taking good care of Travis. The doctors say he’s going to be okay. He’s already better. He’s being looked after. And when Travis feels better and Aaron’s at work, I’ll bring him to your store so you can see him. Okay?”
That’s what I got.
That’s all I got.
My son was sick and in order to avoid a lawsuit and have more of him taken away from me, a lawsuit I couldn’t defend against because I couldn’t afford an attorney, I had to wait for my ex-husband’s young, beautiful fiancée to bring my baby boy to me at work.
I closed my eyes again, leaned forward, and didn’t feel my forehead hitting the door.
“Carissa,” Tory prompted. “Okay?”
“Okay,” I whispered brokenly.
It wasn’t okay.
Nothing was okay.
And worst of that nothing, my baby was not okay and I couldn’t see him.
“Okay,” she whispered back. Then, “I’m so sorry.”
I really hated her, and right then I hated that she was making it hard for me to keep hating her even when she had my baby and I didn’t.
I also hated what I had to say next.
“Thank you for calling me.”
“If anything changes, I’ll find a way to call you again. But he’s good. I promise.”
“All right.”
“See you at the store tomorrow. Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“’Bye, Carissa.”
“Goodbye, Tory.”
She disconnected.
I kept my phone to my ear, my forehead to the door, my hand clasping the handle, my eyes squeezed tight.
“What was that?”
The words came to me in a deep biker voice I knew but they didn’t penetrate.
My baby boy with his chubby cheeks and his granddad’s eyes was sick without me.
The words came again. “What was that?”
They again didn’t penetrate because as I stood there, I knew.
I had to do something. I had to put a stop to Aaron’s mission of misery.
I had no choice.
“Carissa, what was that?”
“I have to get on my knees,” I whispered.
“What?”
I pulled away from the door and looked to my side.
Joker was close.
“I was wrong. I don’t need my car,” I announced. “But I’ll wait in the office or go and browse the store. I’ll just go on over to the garage first and let them know.” I hauled open the door. “Enjoy the pie.”
I didn’t get out because Joker curled his fingers around my upper arm and pulled me back.
That got my attention, slightly, and I distractedly noticed the two other men (one still holding his baby) and three women in the room were all gathered close behind Joker and they were
watching me.
I looked up into Joker’s steel eyes.
“Is something wrong with Travis?” he asked.
“He has croup,” I said, my voice flat. “I’m assured he’s fine.”
“Darlin’, got my car here. While they work on yours, I can take you—” the black lady began.
I stopped her by shaking my head. “I’m not allowed at my ex-husband’s house without his permission.”
“Your kid’s sick,” the mustachioed man told me something I very well knew.
I straightened my spine and met his eyes.
“My ex-husband is an attorney. As was his father, before he became a judge. As was his grandfather, ditto the judge part. All of them in Denver. This means if he doesn’t want me at his house, I don’t go.”
“You’re fuckin’ joking,” Joker bit out and I looked to him.
“I am not,” I stated curtly.
His hand tightened on my arm.
My eyes started stinging. “If you’ll release me, I’ll get out of your hair.”
“What’s it mean, get on your knees?” Joker asked.
Dirty water washed through me, and I felt an uncomfortable charge hit the air at his question.
I shook my head, pulling at my arm in his hold. “Doesn’t matter.”
“What does it mean?”
I could take no more.
I yanked out of his hold, leaned toward him, and shrieked, “It doesn’t matter!” I threw out both hands, still screeching. “Nothing matters! Nothing but him! Travis! That’s all that matters!”
Then I whirled, hauled open the door, and ran out.
“Joker, no. Red, go,” I heard a gravelly voice say as I ran. Then, “Hop, lock ’im down. Red, go.”
I heard it.
But I just ran.
Tack
The door to the meeting room opened and Tack’s eyes, along with those of the boys who were with him, went to it.
He watched his woman strut through.
Normally, he would take the time to appreciate this. It was a habit. He did it daily.
Right then, he saw the expression on her face and he didn’t take that time.
He looked around the room. With Dog and Brick in Grand Junction opening up the Club’s new store, he’d made Hop and Shy his lieutenants. Hop had been a brother for decades. Shy was newer. Hop was married to his woman’s best girl, Lanie. Shy was married to Tack’s daughter, Tabitha.