5. Willow
5
WILLOW
“Happy birthday, Willow! Welcome to the last year of your early twenties!” Grace declares with a giggle, raising her glass. In the distance, motorcycles roar, the low growl of the engines getting progressively louder. “Starting next year, all you’re going to start hearing is, “When are you getting married?” and, “Your eggs aren’t getting any younger, you know.”
I pretend to sob for a second before laughing and downing the rest of my champagne. The bubbles go straight to my head. “Oh, please. If anyone asks, I’ll just tell them to check for a best by date when they kiss my ass.”
Terry throws back his head and laughs. “Damn, I want to be there to see it. Are your parents pushing for you to settle down now that you have the house?”
That’s a question that would require a whole new bottle of champagne to answer, and it would just drag the mood down. I shake my head. “Not really. They’re uh… free spirits.”
So free they didn’t even call me for my birthday. They’re always busy , or somewhere they insist phones don’t work, but the truth is they’re just living in their own world and it doesn’t occur to them. Last I heard they were working at a meditation retreat in Thailand in exchange for a place to live. The place offers live streamed classes, so I know they could contact me if they remembered. They will eventually, but it could take a day or a month.
Grace puts a hand on Terry’s leg and throws me a glance of sympathy. She knows a lot more about my parents than he does and I suspect she’ll update him later.
A sudden blast of gunfire from the Outlaw Sons compound has us all jumping and ducking. It’s followed by several more in quick succession and a whoop of laughter which is my cue to relax. She and Terry aren’t used to it though. They are visibly terrified.
“What the hell was that?” Terry asks.
“The bikers have a firing range,” I say, like it’s a completely normal thing to have to deal with.
Grace looks horrified. “HERE? Is that legal? That can’t be legal.”
“Probably not, but I called the police when I first moved in and they laughed at me. Told me I could complain to them myself if I wanted to.” I take a gulp of champagne. “You kind of get used to it after a while.”
“Really?”
“No, not really, but they aren’t going anywhere and neither am I.”
More motorcycles roar past, and then in the distance, the heavy beat of music kicks up. I can’t hear the song, but I can feel the bass vibrating through my ribcage. Terry and Grace look at each other, silently communicating in the annoying way people in love do, but it doesn’t take a genius to guess what it’s about.
Grace puts down her glass. “Maybe we should go. It’s getting kind of late…”
“It’s not even midnight. They’re not going to bother us,” I plead, but I can see on their faces that they want to get out of biker central.
“She’s right,” Terry says apologetically. “We couldn’t have stayed much later anyway. I have a shift in the morning. Are you going to be okay? If you want, you can come back with us and crash on the couch.”
The back window rattles when a flurry of gunshots punctuate the night. Grace plasters herself against Terry’s side, and he puts an arm around her. I bet Skyhigh, Blackout and Dragon are up there having the time of their lives while I’m just trying to get one nice evening for my birthday.
I’m going to kill them. “No, no, I’ll be fine. It’s just noise.” I suppose I should be grateful the Outlaw Sons at least waited until after dinner to destroy the peace.
The house feels extra empty once Grace and Terry leave. Not ready to sleep, I start to clean up, nearly smashing a plate as I rush to fill the dishwasher. Meanwhile up the hill, the bikers party like they don’t have a care in the world. I clench my fists and glare out the back window. I usually put on my noise cancelling headphones and hide in my room with a book when they get noisy, but something about getting bullied around on my own birthday is really ticking me off.
This. This is why I don’t believe them when they come down here pretending to be sweet little helpful boys. Because this is reality. They act like they own the whole neighborhood and nobody else has a say in it! Never mind that I’m basically the only “somebody else” that’s left. I’m still here, aren’t I?
The police won’t touch them. So who will?
I grab my keys and start marching up the block with a lot of feelings and zero plan beyond making sure someone else is just as annoyed as I am. My nails are digging half-moon shapes into my palms, and I don’t care how stupid it is to confront a motorcycle club about making noise on a Friday night.
But even as furious as I am, I almost chicken out when I turn the corner onto the next street and see a row of bikes lining the sidewalk, with bikers and their women hanging out under the streetlights in front of their clubhouse.
This is stupid. What was I thinking?
But Skyhigh’s smug grin flashes through my mind. They’re in there somewhere, him, Dragon and Blackout, probably drinking and partying with half dressed women without a care in the world.
I keep my eyes fixed straight ahead as I pass by a guy who has a woman in a miniskirt pinned up against the wall surrounding their property. Based on his grunts and her encouraging noises, I have one guess what they are doing. Right out in the open? Really? These people seriously live in their own crazy world. A few people give me looks, but nobody says anything or tries to stop me. I almost wish they would.
No.
If this was one of my books, I would have the heroine march right in and give them a piece of her mind. There’s only one problem. As much as I love writing about women who kick ass, I haven’t done much of it myself.
At the gate two big bikers lean against the wall, talking. The way their sharp eyes scan the night makes it clear they’re standing guard. One of them, a tall man with long dark hair and a thick black beard steps forward as I approach.
“Hey, pretty lady. Haven’t seen you around. Where you headed?” His tone is relaxed, even a little friendly, but I don’t think for a moment that he’ll let me pass without answering.
In a sparkly black cocktail dress from dinner and white sneakers because they were the first pair of shoes I found at the door, I definitely looked dressed for something and it’s not this. “I’m… uh… here for the party?”
He raises an eyebrow. “You askin’ or tellin’?”
“Let her in, Riot. Unless you think she’s trouble,” the other asks with a snorted laugh. His head is shaved, and he’s just as big as his friend if not bigger.
“Shut it, Crank. Trouble comes in a lot of different packages. You fucking know that.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Crank waves the comment aside. “What’s the deal, honey? You got a man in here?”
“N—not exactly, but are Skyhigh, Dragon and Blackout around? I?—”
Riot snaps his fingers and points at me. “That’s why you look familiar. You’re the chick in the corner house.” He looks me up and down. “Nice dress, but you sure you want to party with us? I don’t think it’s going to be the kind of cocktail hour you’re used to.”
The church doors swing open and a woman staggers out. Her brown hair is teased up into an impressive mane, and her tight shirt is half off. A biker is right on her heels. She laughs and makes a run for it in high heels onto the grass nearby. He catches up quickly and throws her over his shoulder, slipping a hand up her short skirt.
“It’s, uh… it’s okay,” I stammer. “I’m not staying. I just wanted to talk to them about…” My brain loses track of what I’m saying as I catch a glimpse of the chaos inside the church. “The noise…”
Crank laughs so hard he can hardly breathe. “Holy shit. Let her in. That’s fucking gold.”
Riot grins like that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “Go on, then. Let ‘em have it.”
This is a terrible idea. Between the fresh air and the adrenaline, I’ve sobered up enough to know just how out of my depth I am. At the same time, there’s a little niggling of curiosity in the back of my mind that has me moving forward anyway. If I want to write something new, I need to get out of my comfort zone, and this is definitely that.
I was inside this church once or twice when I was a kid. My family was never very religious, but the school occasionally had fairs and barbecues that Gram would take me to. From the outside, the church looks about the same. I walk up the stairs in a daze, taking everything in. On the outside, it’s almost unchanged, but the inside is a temple to Dionysus and Eros, the gods of wine and lust. I walk through the doors and into their inner sanctum like Alice stumbling through the looking glass.
Heavy metal blares from the sound system, drowning out the sea of people who are busy dancing, drinking and who knows what. The old pews have been mostly ripped out, though a few are still around, pushed to the side. A disco ball hangs from the ceiling, catching the pulsing lights and sending rainbow flecks to play fancifully over the stained glass church windows. A big screen TV plays a football game in the back, and behind the altar at the front of the church, instead of a cross, hangs a giant banner with the Outlaw Sons logo. Over it is a black leather biker vest, and underneath there’s a bar stocked with various types of alcohol.
But it’s what’s on the altar that grabs my attention and freezes me in place: a woman with long, purple hair dancing to the music in nothing but skimpy underwear. Her eyes are closed and there’s a smile on her face as she unhooks her bra and after a moment of teasingly letting it rest on her breasts, sends it flying into the crowd. A tall man with the sides of his head shaved and a tattoo stretching up onto his scalp, snatches it out of the air and cheers. His other arm is in a sling, looking recently injured.
This used to be a church!
She opens her eyes and grins at the biker, hooking her finger and gesturing for him to come closer. My eyes are as locked to her as his are. I drift their way as he pushes through to the front. There’s something about her total confidence that captivates me, and I don’t even swing that way. I don’t know if I want to be her, or just to have that kind of complete disregard for what anyone might think.
The biker runs his hands up her legs as she gyrates to the beat. Clearly they’re allowed to do more than look here. Her hips swivel in a figure eight so smooth that it makes me want to ask her about her warmup routine. With every slow beat of the music, she drops lower and lower until her crotch is right in front of his face.
I can’t look away. He peels her panties to the side and?—
A calloused hand closes around my upper arm.
I let out a little shriek and spin around. “I was just?—”
Blackout’s green eyes sparkle in amusement as he looks down at me. “Just what?”
Face on fire, I shake my head like a kid caught looking up dirty pictures on the family computer. I came here to… what exactly? File a noise complaint with the management? No wonder the guys at the gate laughed at me. “Nothing. I was, um, looking for one of you.”
Dragon presses his way through the crowd to join us, noticeably tall even in a crowd of tall men. He crosses his arms over his chest as he looks me up and down, eyes pausing on my dress. His long, dark hair is damp and hanging loose, and there’s an angry cut down his right forearm that wasn’t there last time I saw him. “Well, you found us. What are you doing here, Willow?”
“It isn’t as much fun when it’s your house getting barged into, is it?” I fire back.
Blackout snorts.
Yeah, it made more sense in my head.
Dragon takes a step forward, putting himself close enough that I can smell the sharp forest scent of soap on his skin. “I’m asking because when a pretty girl dresses up and crashes one of our parties, every man in here is gonna assume she’s here for one thing,” he whispers right in my ear. “To get fucked. Is that it? You got an itch that needs scratching?”
The stripper behind me lets out a long, low groan that’s so heavily laced with pleasure that I nearly feel it along with her. “God damn, Lash!”
My mouth opens, but no words come out. Someone stole the air from my lungs and left me burning with curiosity and a heavy, warm sensation that I haven’t felt in far too long. Lust. But it’s too much too fast. Just being inside a place like this is already way outside my comfort zone. The idea that people might be looking at me and assuming I’m here to get my freak on is terrifying.
I knew I was a phony, wanting to write hot, smutty books, but I think I figured it would be like writing about dragons and magic. I could make it up as I went along. Maybe my ex was right. A girl who’s only had sex in the dark should stick to fade to black. How could I ever put this kind of raw energy on a page and have readers believe it?
“Willow?” Skyhigh’s voice asks from behind. “Back off man. She’s fucking spooked.”
“Shit, for someone who writes about fucking, you’re real easy to rattle.” Dragon steps back and I can breathe again.
The words dig deep into my sore spot and make me defensive. “When I write it’s about the feelings , not the mechanics.”
“That means you’re not doing the mechanics right, baby,” Blackout says with a smirk.
“And you’d know?” I scoff.
The three of them look at me like I’m being stupid.
“What?”
Skyhigh licks his lips and a wicked gleam shines in his blue eyes. “Yeah, we would. While you’ve been a good little girl staying home and studying, we’ve been out here putting in the work. If you want a real lesson in getting dirty, honey, you came to the right fucking place.”