Chapter 2
2
Melody
In a week, I’ll be starting my residency at one of the best hospitals in LA—the Los Angeles County General hospital. And with that, I will have left behind my life in Pleasantville, a town in Northern California and home to Devil’s Nightmare MC. The Devils have been my only family for the last ten years. Leaving them is the only fly in the honey of my plan to start a new life, turn the page, open a new book. But after watching so many of them die in the battle they fought two nights ago, I now know without a shadow of doubt that I cannot watch any of them die ever again. A decade ago, I lost my real family and I can’t bear to lose another.
This morning, I was being shown around the ER by the Chief Attending when Hunter, the son of Devil’s Nightmare MC president, called that he needed me again. So I grabbed a new suturing kit, some saline, gauze and other things I might need, and hoped no one saw me steal them, while I waited on the sidewalk by the hospital for Hunter to pick me up. I’ll replace it all when I start working here next week. But right then, the men of Devil’s Nightmare MC needed it more.
All the blood, and all the death, and all the futility of what little I could do to save their wounded after the battle came rushing back. Chief among the deathly pale faces of the men I couldn’t save was the bluish face of the man—Edge—who talked me off a ledge and saved my life a long time ago. Along with the memories came the nausea and the shakes, which make an ER doc useless.
After Edge saved me, he brought me with him to the Devil’s Nightmare MC clubhouse where I stayed as one of their club girls. I was just a freshman at university, who had suddenly and irrevocably found herself alone in the world and with nothing left to lose. They took me in treated me like family. Even convinced me to go back to school once my grief subsided. They gave me something to lose all over again. And it’s been happening a lot since they got caught up in a war.
By rights I should be the one patching them up now that I’m a doctor. Now that they’re fighting a war they might not win for a long time. And I tried. I really did. Because I owe them my life. I’ve done nothing but try for the last nine months.
But it’s only gotten harder and harder. Not easier.
There’s a reason doctors shouldn’t treat their close kin. It’s impossible to stay calm and collected enough to do it. They understand. They’ve let me go. Because they know you can’t do what can’t be done.
I can’t watch them die. I can’t even see them get hurt. I proved that beyond any kind of doubt when my hands shook so hard I couldn’t even stitch up a single knife cut by the end of that terrible day. Yesterday. The day I finally irrevocably decided to start a new life. Before yesterday, I was still dithering.
Luckily, Hunter didn’t need me for anything too serious. Just a couple of torn stitches and lots of blood. We were on our way home to Pleasantville, where I still need to pack up my whole life, when he got a call and brought us here, to this rundown dive bar.
This place must have been a happening place once upon a time, if all the photos of famous people on the walls, which were taken right here, are anything to go by. But that was back when the furniture was still pink and silver, the colors probably chosen to go with the name of the place—Flamingo Saloon. Now my jeans are getting dirty from sitting on the bar stool, and I don’t want to even touch the glass my coke was served in, let alone drink from it.
Hunter is in one of the booths, talking to a tall, dark-haired man with the most interesting green eyes I’ve ever seen. Each time he looks at me they’re a different color. Sometimes they’re dark like the redwood forest back home, sometimes the color of a calm lake on a sunny day, and sometimes they’re blacker than night.
I only know so much about the color of his eyes because he can’t seem to keep them off me. He’s been looking at me since I walked in here. But it’s not a lust and desire type of look… it’s more of a pensive thing. Like there’s something about me he can’t quite figure out, but wants to.
I could get used him looking at me.
But no.
He’s a biker. And judging by the well-fitting leather pants and jacket with a set of angel wings on the back, I’d say he’s deep in that world. His clothes fit him like they were tailor-made just for him and he fills them very nicely.
But I will never be with a biker for two reasons.
The first is simple… I’m leaving behind an MC that treated me like family for the past ten years, and I’m not doing it so I can climb in bed with some biker stranger.
The second is something I don’t like to acknowledge too clearly. I was a club girl for the last ten years. And in the biker world, you’re either a club girl or an ol’ lady, no matter how well you’re treated otherwise.
I learned that lesson the hard way once or twice when I fell in love and wanted more. Which I never got. No hard feelings. Just the way it is. I regret none of my life with the Devils. Becoming their club girl back then was the best decision I could’ve made. It saved my life. Just like leaving it all behind is the best decision I can make now.
I can’t hear what the guy and Hunter are talking about, but I hope they’ll be done soon. It’s a full night’s ride to get back home and I long to sleep in my bed tonight.
Their conversation was calm before, but suddenly it gets a lot more animated. They come to some sort of an agreement and get up to leave.
“We’re going to their clubhouse now,” Hunter says as he comes up to me, the green-eyed guy right behind him.
I groan. “Do we have to? I thought we were going home after this.”
Hunter didn’t even hear me because he’s already striding out of the bar, but the other guy stopped beside me. His eyes are still searching mine like he’s trying to pry out all my deepest secrets, but now he’s smiling as he does it. And the smile does things to his face I didn’t expect. Takes years off, for one thing. Years of torment and pain, I’d guess. It also does something to the color of his eyes, which are sparkling like the clearest emeralds now.
“At least the clubhouse is cleaner than this place,” he says as I climb off the barstool.
“Can’t get much dirtier,” I say and smile him.
He laughs, and it’s a much happier sound than I expected to hear from him. Given the pain in his eyes, which is very clear from this close.
“Truth is, I could use some dinner,” I add. “And a bed.”
I can’t believe I’m flirting with him after all the promises I made myself just minutes ago. It’s not even in what I’m saying. More the way I’m saying it and the way I can’t seem to look away from his eyes which right now look just like gems do when sunlight hits them. But flirting is a reflex I’ve developed with bikers. It doesn’t mean anything. And it’s certainly not anything that’s gonna lead anywhere.
He grins. “We got those things too. I’m Rogue, by the way.”
“Melody,” I say and finally manage to peel my gaze away from his eyes.
I start walking out of the bar before I flirt some more.
“Figures,” he says as he falls in step with me.
“What does?” I ask, glancing at him, but otherwise keeping my eyes on the door. Not looking at his eyes is the only way I will be safe.
He pulls the door open for me like a perfect gentleman.
“That you’d have a real pretty name to go with the rest of the beautiful package,” he says and makes my breath hitch.
I’ve already heard all the lines guys use to get in a woman’s pants and then some. So his words aren’t the reason I’m having trouble catching my breath or finding something to respond with.
It’s the way he said it. With such raw honesty and with just enough feeling to make me believe it came from the heart. And there’s just the right level of surprise in his eyes as the words hang between us like he can’t believe he said it either. Like the words just came out because they had to.
What the hell am I thinking?
I’m reading way too much into all this, and I almost give myself a hard slap across the cheek to snap out of it.
The tiredness, stress, and the gut-wrenching pain that’s been the last couple of days is causing me to see and hear things in his words that can’t possibly be there. And why I’m seeing them in the way he looks at me too.
“Thank you,” I say and give him one last smile as I walk out into the parking lot and climb on the back of Hunter’s bike.
I’m not a club girl anymore. And I’ll never be any biker’s ol’ lady.
That’s just how it’s gotta be. No regrets. But that part of my life is over.