Chapter 4 - Riot
What the fuck am I doing?
I watch Alice settle into the booth across from me, Maya still on the floor making Biscuit's entire year, and I can't figure out what possessed me to invite her to sit down.
I don't do this. Don't invite strangers into my space, into Maya's space.
Don't make small talk with women I barely know in diners while my daughter plays with their dogs.
I've spent the last six months keeping us separate from everyone, keeping us moving, keeping us safe by keeping us alone. And yet here I am, sliding a menu across the table to a woman with gentle eyes and nervous hands who came looking for me.
She came looking for me.
I saw it on her face the second she spotted us through the window, that flash of relief mixed with uncertainty, like she'd been hoping to find me but didn't actually believe she would. Like she'd talked herself into this and was half a second away from talking herself right back out.
Then Maya saw the dog and the decision was made for both of us.
"Thank you," Alice says quietly, wrapping her hands around the coffee mug Murphy just dropped off. "For the coffee, I mean. And for yesterday. And for not thinking I'm a complete lunatic for coming back here."
"You're not a lunatic." I take a sip of my own coffee. Still terrible, but hot and caffeinated, which is all that really matters. "You wanted to say thank you, didn’t you?"
"Yes" She gives me a look that's half smile, half disbelief. "I spent all day convincing myself this was a terrible idea and I should just let it go."
"But you didn't."
"But I didn't." She glances down at Maya and Biscuit. "Your daughter is beautiful."
"Thank you." The words come automatically, but they're true. Maya is beautiful. All dark curls and bright eyes and an enthusiasm for life that I don't know where she gets from. Certainly not from me. "She's a good kid. Better than I deserve."
"I doubt that."
I don't respond to that, just watch Maya tell Biscuit an elaborate story about the time we saw wild horses in Nevada. The dog is listening with rapt attention, tail wagging, like this is the most fascinating thing he's ever heard.
"She's very social," Alice observes. "Does she… I mean, with you traveling and everything, does she get to interact with other kids much?"
And there it is. The question I've been asking myself for months, the guilt that sits in my chest like a stone. "Not as much as she should."
Alice nods, doesn't push. I appreciate that more than she probably knows.
Last night feels like it happened in another lifetime.
After Tank left us on Main Street, I stood there with Maya's hand in mine for a solid five minutes, trying to decide what to do.
The smart thing would have been to find that shithole motel King mentioned, get a few hours of sleep, and leave town before sunrise.
But Maya was looking up at me with those eyes, her mother's eyes, trusting and hopeful, and I heard myself saying we'd check out the clubhouse.
The ride over took ten minutes. The Savage Riders' clubhouse is exactly what King said—a big building, easy to spot, gate open. I pulled up expecting... I don't know what I expected. Suspicion, maybe. Questions. The kind of territorial posturing I remember from my old MC.
Instead, I got Steel, the mechanic, maybe thirty, covered in grease stains, waving us inside like we were expected guests. Got a clean room with actual sheets that didn't smell like cigarettes and mildew. Got a bathroom with hot water and towels that were probably older than me but clean.
Got King showing up an hour later with a first aid kit and a bottle of whiskey.
"For the cuts," he said, handing over the kit. "And for everything else," he added, holding up the bottle.
Maya was already asleep. She crashed the second her head hit the pillow, exhausted from the road and the excitement. I cleaned up my knuckles, drank whiskey with King in the common room, and tried to figure out what the hell I'd stumbled into.
This MC is nothing like the one I left. Nothing like any MC I've ever heard of.
They protect the town. Actually protect it, not in the bullshit "pay us protection money or else" way, but in the "those are our people and we keep them safe" way.
They run security for local businesses, handle problems before they become problems, and apparently draw a hard line at drugs, trafficking, and anything else that hurts civilians.
It's like something out of a fever dream. A motorcycle club with an actual code. With honor that isn't just a word on a patch. I didn't believe it at first. Kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for someone to mention the real business, the shit they keep off the books.
But it never came.
King left around midnight. Said I should think about his offer, that the work was real if I wanted it, that Maya would be safe here.
Then this kid, Rookie, maybe twenty-six, newest member, wandered in looking for a beer and ended up sitting with me for another hour.
Dating a cop, of all things. A fucking cop. I almost laughed when he told me, thought he was fucking with me. But he was dead serious, showing me pictures on his phone of this woman in uniform, talking about her like she hung the moon.
"Doesn't the club have a problem with that?" I asked.
Rookie shrugged. "King says as long as she's good people and I'm not compromising the club, it's my business. She hates dirty cops more than we do, so it works out."
A biker dating a cop with the club's blessing. A MC that actually gives a shit about the town instead of bleeding it dry. A president who offers shelter to strangers and doesn't ask for anything in return.
This whole town is like a fever fantasy.
And now there's Alice.
Sitting across from me with her nervous hands and her gentle dog, looking at me like I did something heroic instead of just basic human decency.
"You're staring," she says quietly, and I realize she's right.
"Sorry." I look away, focus on my coffee. "Just thinking."
"About?"
About how I don't know what I'm doing. About how I should be gone already. About how you look at me and I feel like maybe I'm not completely broken after all.
"About whether I'm staying," I say instead.
Her eyes widen slightly. "You're thinking about staying? In Blackwater Falls?"
"Thinking about it." I glance at Maya, who's now lying on the floor with Biscuit's head in her lap, both of them looking blissfully content. "King offered me work. Security, protection, that kind of thing. Says Maya would be safe here, could go to school, make friends."
"She could," Alice says, and there's something in her voice: warmth, maybe, or hope. "The elementary school is wonderful. Small classes, good teachers. I teach fourth grade there."
Of course she does. Of course this woman who walks her dog at the same time every evening and came looking for me just to say thank you is a teacher.
Probably has a house with a white picket fence and bakes cookies for her neighbors and does everything right that I've been doing wrong for the last four years.
"What grade would Maya be in?" Alice asks.
"Pre-K. She'll be five in March."
"Mrs. Henderson teaches pre-K. She's been doing it for thirty years and she's absolutely lovely.
" Alice is warming to the topic now, her nervousness fading as she talks about something she knows.
"The school has a great art program, and music twice a week, and there's a playground that the kids love. "
I can picture it. Maya with friends, Maya with routine, Maya with stability. Maya with a life that doesn't fit in a saddlebag.
"What made you leave?" Alice asks suddenly, then immediately looks horrified. "Sorry. That's none of my business. You don't have to—"
"I was in an MC," I say, and I don't know why I'm telling her this. Don't know why the words are coming out when I've kept them locked down for months. "My brother and I both. Our parents raised us into it. They were true believers in the code, in brotherhood, in doing right by your people."
Alice listens without interrupting, her hands still wrapped around her coffee mug.
"They died a few years back. And after that, things changed.
The MC started dealing in shit my parents would have burned to the ground.
Human trafficking. Heavy drugs. We tried to stop it—me and my brother and a few other good men.
" I can still see their faces sometimes, when I close my eyes.
Good men who died believing in something that didn't exist anymore.
"The good men got killed. All of them. Everyone except my brother and me. "
"Oh my God," Alice breathes.
"My brother built his own MC after that. Clean slate, good people, the kind of thing our parents would have recognized. But I couldn't—" I stop, trying to find the words. "I couldn't stay. Couldn't be in his shadow, couldn't trust that easily again. So, I left. Been on the road ever since."
"With Maya."
"With Maya." I look over at my daughter, still contentedly petting the dog. "She's the only good thing I've ever done. The only thing I'm sure about."
Alice is quiet for a long moment. Then: "You saved me last night. That was good too."
"That was just—"
"Heroic," she interrupts firmly. "That was heroic, Carter. Whether you want to believe it or not."
I don't know what to say to that, so I don't say anything.
"For what it's worth," Alice continues, "this town is good. The Savage Riders are good. I know they're intimidating, and I know trusting people is hard when you've been burned that badly, but they really do protect this place. They keep us safe."
"You sound like you know them pretty well."
"I know of them. Everyone does. But I met Torch last night for the first time, actually." She smiles slightly. "He was very gentle. Checked my whole house to make sure I was safe, gave me his number in case I needed anything. That's not nothing."
No, it's not. It's the kind of thing the MC I left would have mocked as weakness. The kind of thing that tells me King meant what he said about protecting the town.
Maya finally climbs back into the booth, Biscuit trying to follow before realizing he doesn't quite fit under the table. He settles for putting his head on Alice's lap instead, looking up at her with pure adoration.
"I love him," Maya announces. "Can we get a dog, Daddy? Please? I promise I'll take care of it and walk it and feed it and everything."
"We'll see, baby." The same answer I've been giving for months. Can't have a dog when you're living out of motel rooms and riding from town to town.
But if we stayed...
"Ms. Alice has a dog," Maya says to me, as if I haven't noticed the seventy-pound animal currently drooling on Alice's jeans. "He's the best dog in the whole world."
"I can see that." I look at Alice. "Does he always make friends this fast?"
"Only with good people," she says.
I know what's happening here. Know what it means that she came looking for me, that I invited her to sit, that we're talking like this is normal instead of completely insane.
I know what it means that Maya is already attached to her dog, that Alice teaches at the school my daughter could attend, that everything about this feels like it's sliding into place despite my best efforts to keep moving.
I know what it means, and I'm not ready for it.
But Maya is laughing at something Alice said, and Biscuit is wagging his tail hard enough to knock over the salt shaker, and Alice is smiling at my daughter like she's already a little bit in love with her.
And I think maybe, just maybe, I'm willing to take the risk.
"The clubhouse has pancakes in the morning," I hear myself say. "Steel makes them. With chocolate chips."
Alice's smile falters slightly. "I've actually never been to the clubhouse.
I'm not sure the Savage Riders would be okay with that.
I mean, it's their space, and I'm just..
." She trails off, then adds more quietly, "Also, this is a small town.
If someone sees me going into the clubhouse, the rumors would be all over Blackwater Falls by lunchtime. "
Right. Of course. I wasn't thinking, too caught up in the moment, in Maya's laughter and the warmth in Alice's eyes. The clubhouse is MC territory, and she's a civilian. A teacher. Someone with a reputation to protect in a town where everyone knows everyone.
"There's a coffee shop," Alice says, saving me from my own stupid invitation. "Opened about two months ago on Pine Street. The Grind, I think it's called. They have amazing pancakes. And it's public, so..." She gives me a small smile. "No rumors. Just breakfast."
"The Grind," I repeat. "With pancakes."
"With chocolate chips, if Maya wants them."
Maya perks up at her name. "Did someone say chocolate chips?"
"Pancakes tomorrow morning," I tell her. "At a coffee shop. With Alice and Biscuit. You interested?"
"Yes!" Maya bounces in her seat. "Yes yes yes! Can Biscuit sit with us?"
"He's not technically allowed inside restaurants," Alice says apologetically. "But they have outdoor seating with heaters. If the weather's okay, we could sit outside and he could be with us."
"Perfect," I say, and I mean it. Public, casual, no pressure. No clubhouse politics or small-town gossip. Just pancakes and coffee and maybe a chance to figure out what the hell I'm doing.
"Eight o'clock?" she suggests with a smile, always with a smile. "Or is that too early?"
"Eight is good." I glance at Maya. "We're early risers."
"Then it's a date." Alice's eyes widen the second the words leave her mouth. "I mean—not a date date. Just, you know. Plans. Breakfast plans. With a four-year-old and a dog, so definitely not—"
"I know what you meant," I say, and I'm smiling despite myself. "Eight o'clock. The Grind. We'll be there."
And fuck me, but I actually mean it.