jumping up on top of the nearest picnic table, her tits bouncing as she danced around.
The park was small, no more than five acres with a beach type area, except instead of sand it was covered with pine needles that butted up against a huge lake. Tall pine trees lined the edge of the water, every tenth tree or so had been removed to make room for a picnic table or bench. There were people around but not too many to make it crowded, just enough to make witnesses.
Ti held out her arms and took a deep breath, inhaling the fresh air. She looked down at me as I approached and my chest tightened.
“This place is perfect,” she said, flashing me another brilliant smile. She hopped down onto the bench part of the table and walked to the edge, leaping off dramatically before landing on her feet in the dirt like she was a gymnast, raising her arms above her head and taking a step back like she was in the Olympics.
“Seven,” I said, holding up a fake score card.
“Bullshit, biker-boy,” she scoffed. “That was at least an eleven. Seven? Please!” She jumped back up onto another bench and pointed her index finger in the air. “Let’s go to the tapes!” she announced, queuing up her imaginary replay.
“Sorry,” I said, sucking air in between my teeth and bobbing my head from side to side. I stood below her, my face just inches away from the top of her thighs. “The judges have reviewed the tape, and they all agree. Although it would have been a two…” I said, turning her around by her legs so that she was facing away from me. “But you got the extra points because I really dig your ass being at eye level.” I turned my head to the side and rested my cheek on her ass like it was a pillow that I wanted to take a nap on.
Because it was.
I wasn’t able to linger on the phenomenally sexy image of my face pressed against her naked ass for too long because she reached back and swatted at my head with her hat like I was a bee buzzing around her legs. “Bear!” she screeched playfully, jumping back down from the bench and then running around it, holding onto her butt like we were in a locker room and she was protecting it from an impending towel swat.
“Just watching you jump around is exhausting,” I said, reaching into my jeans and pulling out my cigarettes. I lit one and waved the smoke away from my face.
“Mama used to call me her little jumping bean because they could never get me to sit still,” she admitted, finally sitting down on top of the picnic table.
“Fitting,” I said, feeling like I was able to relax now that the jumping bean had stopped jumping.
I took a drag of my cigarette and blew out the smoke. It had taken me forever to figure out where to take Ti. So long now that the sun had just started to set into the horizon. I liked the night. I liked the dark. Smoking in the dark always held more appeal for me than smoking during the day. Maybe it had something to do with being able to see the smoke against the dark background of the night sky. Or maybe it was being able to see the glowing ember from the end of the cigarette or the bright yellow flame when I fired up my lighter. Smoking was familiar to me. It felt good.
It also reminded me of home.
I’d be shit at making one of those anti-smoking public service announcements.
Ti leaned back on the table, closing her eyes like she was soaking up rays that had long disappeared with the setting of the sun.
“I feel like you know so much about me,” she said, although I didn’t think that was true. I don’t think I’d tapped into even half of what made Thia Andrews tick. “But I don’t know that much about you.”
“You know more than anyone else,” I said, and that really was true, but for the exception of King and maybe Grace. In the short time I’d spent with her, she learned more about me than the men back at the club.
Men who were supposed to me my brothers.
Most of whom I’d known since the day I was born.
I leaned back on my elbows, the same way Ti had, soaking in the same imaginary rays. An eerie sense of calm washed over me. I wanted to burn the feeling into my memory, because I knew it wouldn’t last. After the meeting with Bethany tomorrow plans needed to be made.
Decisions needed to be made.
Quickly.
My phone rang. “It’s Bethany,” I told Ti, holding the phone up to my ear. “Yeah,” I answered.
“We have a problem,” Bethany said. I looked over to Ti who thankfully hadn’t heard her. I stood up and walked away casually.
“Go ahead,” I said as calmly as I could muster.
“She’s no longer wanted for questioning,” Bethany snapped.
“That’s great,” I said, looking back over to Ti who smiled.
“No, she’s no longer wanted for questioning because there is a warrant out for her arrest.”
Fuck.
“They finished analyzing the gun and they called in some fancy CSI from Atlanta. There is only three sets of prints in that entire house and only two sets of prints on both guns. The mother’s and Thia’s and since the mom is dead…”
“How do we proceed from here?”
“She turns herself in. I try to call in as many favors as possible and in the meantime I’ll put together a self-defense strategy in case it moves to trial.”
“Is there an alternative?” I asked, wandering around looking at the trees like I was actually interested in the same fucking pine trees that had been growing in that park since before I was born.
“I have another idea,” Bethany said, “But you may not like it. In fact, you’re not going to like it at all.” I didn’t have to like it. Ti was dead if she got locked up. Might as well drive her over to the MC and dump her off at the gate.
Wasn’t going to happen.
“Shoot,” I said.
“How attached are you to this girl?”
“What?” I asked.
“I need to know if this is a fling or a fuck or if you knocked her up or I need to know if this is the real deal, trust me. It’s important.”
I looked over to Thia and didn’t have to search long for the answer. She had picked up a dandelion and was waving it in the wind, spitting them out when the breeze blew the little white petals directly into her mouth.
“Real deal.”
I let Bethany say her piece then hung up the phone and walked back over to Ti. I promised her a normal day and I was going to give it to her no matter what. We still had today.
Not tomorrow.
But we had today.
“What did the lawyer lady say?” Ti asked as I came to sit beside her.
“Just making sure we would be on time tomorrow. She’s kind of a stickler for details,” I said, which was the truth, I just didn’t add the part about the cops that would be there waiting with a warrant.
I thought about running. Taking Ti on the back of my bike and heading out of state as fast as my bike could take us. The alternative Bethany offered wasn’t much of an alternative at all.
The choice I had to make was an easy one.
It would also be an ending to something that hadn’t yet had a chance to begin.
“I guess that’s a good thing for a lawyer to be.”
“Guess so,” I said.
“So as I was saying,” she said, breaking me out of my thoughts. “I don’t even know what your favorite color is—” She stopped mid sentence to look me over, taking in my shirt, boots, and jeans, which were all black. “Okay, never mind, so your favorite color is black, but what is your favorite movie? Favorite holiday? Actually, I don’t even know how old you are.”
I chuckled and shook my head.
“Okay fine, but besides being a big bad biker dude who has issues with his pop, and has eyes that could melt the lock off a chastity belt, I don’t know much about you and you know everything about me, so give it up. Spill the beans, Bear. Rake the dirt. Dish out the good stuff.” Ti ordered, nudging me with her sharp little elbow. She pulled her legs up onto the table and hugged her knees to her chest.
“Melt the lock off a chastity belt, huh?” I asked, raising my eyebrow at her suggestively.
She rolled her eyes. “It figures that’s the only part that registered with you. It’s only an expression.”
“Uh huh, one I’ve never heard,” I teased, feeling a little bad when her face started to redden. I cleared my throat. “But then again I’ve never heard half the shit that comes out of your mouth.”
She shrugged. “You’re not the first person to tell me that. My dad used to say that all the time.”
“Okay, Ti. You win,” I said, changing the subject. “But favorite movie is a tough one, what category are we talking about?”
“All of them,” she said with a smile. “Start with drama.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “The lady is demanding.”
“Yes she is,” she said. “I bet it’s Scarface. Is it Scarface?”
I laughed. “Ask anyone else in the club and I think that’s the answer they’d give you. But I like the classics. Watched a lot of old westerns growing up. I don’t have one particular favorite, but anything with Clint Eastwood, and the older the better.”
“Westerns? Westerns? I was positive you were going to say The Godfather or Scarface.”
“What the fuck is wrong with Westerns? Westerns are the shit.”
“Oh yeah, tell me, why are westerns THE SHIT?” Ti said, air quoting around THE SHIT.
“Because back in the old west, the men were real men. They took charge of the situation. They handled their business by earning respect and gunning down anyone who stood in their way. Cowboys were the first guys to have the balls to be lawless and say fuck-all to society.” I held my cigarette between my lips and pulled up my shirt, pointing to one of the tattoos on my ribcage. “This was one of my very first tattoos.”
Thia gasped. “Clint Eastwood? You have a Clint Eastwood tattoo?” She covered her mouth with her hand. “I mean I’ve seen you without your shirt on and I knew that was a portrait but I didn’t realize it was actually Clint Eastwood.”
I pulled my shirt back down and took a drag of my cigarette. “Laugh all you want, Ti. C.E. was Chuck Norris before there was a Chuck Norris.”
“Oh my god please don’t tell me you have a Chuck Norris tattoo,” she said, grabbing her stomach and continuing to laugh at my expense.
I loved that sound.
I would remember that sound.
“What’s wrong with a Chuck Norris tattoo?” I deadpanned.
“Oh, I didn’t mean. He’s ummm…” I burst out laughing as she tried to backtrack.
I could have let her struggle a little while longer, she looked adorable when she was all flustered, but I was having trouble keeping a straight face. “I’m just fucking with you,” I finally said.
She let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank god. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of that one.”
“Okay, so now you know my favorite, so what’s yours? Same category.”
Thia smiled so big and brightly I thought her mouth was about to swallow her face. “I have two.”
“And…?” I pressed.
“Scarface and The Godfather.”
I laughed more that day than I had in the last twenty-seven years, all because of the girl with the crazy pink hair.
The girl I’d fallen in love with.
Fuck.
“You’re different, Ti,” I said, when we’d both recovered enough to speak again. “But I’ve known that since the day I met you.”
“You mean the day your friend held a gun on me,” she corrected.
“Yes, I mean the day the little kid version of you almost took out a biker seven times your size,” I said.
“Well, serves him right. He shouldn’t have been trying to rob a kid,” she argued.
“Technically, he was trying to rob a store, not a kid,” I countered.
She shot me a look that said ‘oh please.’ “So you’re saying that if it was Emma May at the counter it would’ve somehow ended things better? Because I can tell you right now, it wouldn’t have been a lick better for Skid or Skud or Skuzz or whatever his name was, because Emma May is a shoot-first, don’t-care-about-asking-questions kind of old lady. Just ask her first husband.” She scratched her chin and wrinkled her nose. “Or her fourth…”
The way Thia talked with her hands, reminded me of a character you would find in a comic book.
One with really, really nice tits.
“See what I mean?” I pointed out. “I’ve never heard anyone say the kind of shit you say. You’re just…different.”
“Different,” she said the word slowly like she was examining it, turning it over on her tongue. She twirled a strand of her hair around in her fingers. “Isn’t different just a nicer word for bat-shit-crazy?” she asked, her face serious.
She looked down at her feet.
I reached over and lifted up her chin so she could look at me.
So she could SEE me.
“No, I said different and that’s exactly what I meant. In my world that’s a good thing. No, that’s a fucking GREAT thing. You ain’t like other girls, certainly nothing like the BBB’s.” When Ti wrinkled her nose in confusion I filled her in. “Beach Bastard Bitches, club whores,” I clarified. “When I’m positive you’re going to react one way to something, you keep surprising me by doing the complete opposite and I’m a hard man to surprise,” I said, stubbing out my cigarette on the bottom of my boot.
“I bet you tell all the girls they’re different. Bet that line’s worked a thousand times.” Ti pulled her chin away and stared down at the table, picking at the old red paint that had bubbled up on the surface. There was a hint of jealousy that crept into her question, and if it had come out of anyone else’s mouth I’d probably already ended the conversation and left the second she asked it. But it didn’t come from anyone else.
It came from Thia.
It was…cute.
I could have lied to her and said she was the only girl I’d ever said that to, but there was already a lingering lie between us, or rather an omission of truth on my part, and I didn’t want to add to the growing pile. “There was a girl, just one other. She was different, but not in the same way you were. I thought she could be different for me too.” I admitted out loud for the first time, remembering the sting of pain I felt when I saw King and Ray fucking up against the pillar under the house the night I tried to make her mine, and failed.
“What happened? Why did it end?” she asked, looking up from where she’d just picked off a huge chip of paint, exposing a bright blue strip underneath the red.
“My best friend knocked her up. They’re getting hitched.” I said, and then I waited. But it didn’t come. The regret. The bitterness that usually followed all thoughts of my best friend being with the girl I thought I’d let get away.
Nothing.
“You mean King and…Ray? You and Ray?”
“No, me and Ray nothing. Never even started. It was an idea in my head. An idea that got snuffed out quickly. I never cared about a woman in my entire life and kind of confused my feelings for something it wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” Ti said and I genuinely believed she was sorry, any bitterness or jealousy was gone from her voice.
I shook my head. “Don’t be. I’m happy for them.”
I really meant it.
“Ti, are you jealous?” I teased, although I knew she wasn’t. I nudged her a little too hard and she almost fell off the table, but recovered quickly, using her hands to regain her balance.
I’d officially lost my god damned mind. Not only was I flirting but I’d resorted to pushing her around like a school kid with a crush.
“No, I’m not jealous,” she argued. “I shouldn’t have even asked. It’s none of my business. Besides, you don’t need to tell a girl that they are different to get them into bed, you probably just smile and say ‘Darlin’ and the panties start dropping,” Ti said, crossing and uncrossing her legs that made me want to spread them apart and sink my face down into her tight heat.
I put my hand on top of hers to ease her rambling, but when our hands met I didn’t expect the volt of static energy that sparked between us from a simple touch. Ti looked up at me and her jaw dropped open.