CHAPTER 34
Oh, the beautiful lies we tell ourselves to make all our wrongs feel right.
Time passes as I sink deeper into the role of a hangaround.
It starts slow, just dropping in some nights to visit the clubhouse for drinks and what most there would consider a good time.
Eventually, I’m deemed trustworthy enough to come around whenever I feel like it, and as I slowly become friends with some of the women at Wet Tips, I bring them along with me.
Mainly, so I don’t stand out as the only new girl.
We become the main attraction, dancing for the guys at parties, and pleasuring anyone we decide to latch on to for the night, while reveling in the highs that come with alcohol, Mary Jane, and wild nights filled with music and sex.
I push my conscience to the very back of my mind and keep it there.
Goose becomes a constant figure in my periphery.
Always watching from afar as if he loves nothing more than to torture himself, and me by extension.
He doesn’t say a word, stop me, or intervene.
He’s my shadow, my watcher from the sidelines.
He drinks or smokes the night away, and delivers condemnation by his expression alone, not saying a word but punishing me for my choices, and making every walk of shame a two-party occasion, because he’s somehow always there to see it.
I know what I do here is for the right reasons, but it doesn’t make it any less difficult.
The night terrors return, and I often wake to dreams of Goose. Either he dies like Hodge, and I play Bethany, the grieving widow sitting by the casket, or I claw at the dirt, trying to save him from the grave he’s buried in.
These vivid dreams haunt me long after waking. Keeping my mind and body busy seems to be the only way to shake them from my thoughts.
Living off little rest and stressed to the max due to all the burdens I’m trying to juggle has me on a knife’s edge. My mask, control, and patience are paper-thin and in danger of breaking.
So the next time Stone’s hand begins creeping under my skirt while he kisses my neck, I glare right back at Goose, scolding him with a look that says look the fuck away if you don’t like it.
He never does.
He watches it all and this creates an endless cycle of misery we both must endure.
Stone talks me into joining him and some of the other HOCs at a bike rally in Reno.
It’s been a while since I’ve ridden on the back of a bike for long periods, so at first, I’m a little nervous, but the trip goes off without a hitch.
Getting away from the clubhouse and out on the open road does wonders to improve my mood.
He may not be the man I want to ride with, but I take pleasure where I can find it these days, which on the drive there, consists of the wind in my hair and the scenery as we pass through the desert.
We stop for one night at a KOA. As Stone and the other guys set up camp, I stretch my limbs and work to untangle my hair before rebraiding it.
A couple of the old ladies and other clubpieces do the same.
Then we pull together a meal out of the supplies we brought with us.
I hand out waters and beers to those who want them.
A couple of people have followed in their vehicles, and when they unload the chairs and firewood, I take a seat and claim a spot around the fire pit. After the fire gets going, we spend the better part of the night listening to stories of times past from the storytellers in the group.
Goose chooses a seat on the opposite side of the fire from me. For the most part, he’s just as intrigued by the tales being vividly painted for us as I am. He’s drinking and even taking part in the conversation, corroborating events and even adding details that have been left out.
Seeing him so carefree is kind of devastating to the emotional wall I’m trying to maintain. So is his smile and laugh when they make an appearance.
“So, this jackass not only flips me off, he swerves like he’s gonna run me the fuck over.
The guy’s towing a fucking fifth-wheel. He’s got his wife and kids in the truck, and the fifth-wheel’s like thirty fucking feet long, and he pulls into my lane any time I speed up to get close enough to yell at him to pull the fuck over.
” Bodie is waving his arms around while he speaks, and his full beer sloshes over the rim every now and then.
Septic is enthralled and smiling. Kendra is on his lap, and she asks, “So what’d you do?”
Bodie shrugs. “I was tempted to shoot his tires out.”
Kendra gasps, “Tell me you didn’t.”
“No, I fuckin’ didn’t. What the fuck, Spice? I just told you there were kids in the fuckin’ truck.” Bodie gives Septic a look that says, is she really that dense ? But to be fair, he did kind of lead us all there.
Then he says, “I followed his redneck ass until he pulled off the freeway and then chased him around the motherfuckin’ gas station until I got a hold of him. I beat him senseless where the kids couldn’t see their dad whining like a pansy-ass.”
“And it took him three fuckin’ laps around that building to catch him,” Goose supplies and Dozer confirms by holding up three fingers.
“What?” Bodie exclaims. “That fucker was fast as hell, and it had been a minute since I’ve had to run my ass off like that. Had enough of that shit in the Army to last a lifetime. And like who the fuck does cardio willingly? Dumb fucks that’s who.”
Dozer, Kendra, and a few others raise their hands.
Bodie’s drink spills as he points it at each person who raised their hand. “Dumb fucks. The lot of ya.” He intentionally shakes his bottle at them and lets drops sprinkle on a few of them.
“What the fuck, man?” Dozer swipes off the beer now on his jeans.
“You’ve been baptized in the name of… I don’t know… humanity.”
“Humanity?”
“Yeah, like the regular people of this world who don’t have time for shit like cardio and meal prep. Now, as long as you don’t do that shit again, we can be friends.”
“Hey, now,” Kendra says. “I love runn—”
Septic places his hand over her mouth, and when her gaze snaps to his, he shakes his head. “Don’t argue with him or he’ll go on and on all night.” To Bodie, he says, “Finish the story. So you beat his ass?”
“But you should’ve heard him,” Dozer cuts in.
He looks at Goose. “Do you remember what he was yelling as he chased that asshole down?” Dozer can barely get the words out.
He wipes tears of laughter from his eyes.
“’Slow down, you dopey hillbilly fuck, so I can send your ass back to bumfuckville.
’ And I think he said something like, ‘I’m gonna put my boot so far up your ass, your roosters gonna crow. ’”
The entire group loses their shit.
“Bumfuckville,” Goose laughs and shakes his head. “Fuck, I forgot about that part. Jesus.”
“And what was the wife screaming the entire time?” Dozer asks Goose.
“Hooligans. She called us fuckin’ hooligans. It’s like we were in a time warp or we’d been dropped in a bad episode of Pleasantville.”
“So what happened after you beat his ass?” Septic asks.
Bodie opens his mouth, but Goose holds his hand up and replies. “He made the guy kiss the toe of his boot before he’d let him leave.”
“No shit?” Septic says.
“No shit,” Goose replies. “He had to apologize, beg for forgiveness on his goddamn knees, promise to never fuck with another biker again, and then kiss the toe of his boot.”
Bodie shrugs. “Funny what a gun to the face can do to a man, am I right?”
“Bodie!” Kendra scolds.
“What? You can bet your ass he’s gonna think twice about driving like an asshole and starting fights with another motorist.”
“That’s a thing for you, isn’t it?” Stone enters the conversation.
Bodie smiles. “Yep, number one fuckin’ pet peeve. People who drive like douche nozzles.”
“Swear to fuck, he must have worked at the DMV or been a meter maid in another life,” Dozer adds.
“Or maybe he was a pi—” Septic starts.
Bodie cuts him off. “Don’t you fuckin’ dare say a pig or I’m throwing this fuckin’ beer at your head.”
When I laugh, Goose’s deep blue gaze immediately connects with mine.
Breaking the connection is the hard part. I do, eventually, but not before my mind runs a little wild with fantasies of what this moment would look like in a different light. With me sitting on his lap versus Stone’s. What would it have been like today if I’d ridden on the back of his bike?
Though yes, that’s not possible, but still the visual does pop into my mind for a split second.
Goose’s fierce gaze seems to imply he’s thinking similar thoughts because the emotion in his eyes is telling.
So, yeah, I force myself to refocus my attention on Stone. I click off my emotions as much as I’m able to and act the part, while trying to ignore the stare I can feel directed at me from across the party as the night wears on.
After some heavy petting with Stone later that night in the privacy of his tent, I beg off and tell him I’m on my period.
I encourage him to rejoin the party and get what he needs from one of the other girls.
I’ve dosed him with sleeping pills a few times to get a reprieve, but I try not to do that too often so he doesn’t catch on.
It takes some major convincing to get him to go, but he finally leaves me and rejoins the party.
I spend the next hour praying he doesn’t return any time soon and listening to the voices from the party. Goose’s is low and hard to hear, but when I focus on it, the cadence of it eventually lulls me to sleep.