CULVER: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (2 page)

~
4
~

I was holding the blue fishbowl in one hand, trying to
corral Alicia with the other. Like always, Alicia was way ahead of Becky and I
in terms of drinking: she was almost totally wasted, but thankfully she was a
pretty harmless drunk. Kind of loud, and definitely prone to running away, but
overall very easy to manage and cute enough to get away with plenty of
shenanigans.

I’d just bought one of the hotel bar’s signature
fishbowl drinks, a mysterious-smelling drink of many flavors, tinted a
brilliant, nearly glorious, blue. There were two crazy, colorful, swirly straws
(one for me, one for Becky: Alicia was demoted to water for the next hour).

“Oh my God, Samantha, just like, let me dance!” Alicia
said, way too loudly, right in my ear.

“Not until you get some food in you,” I said, trying
to direct her to the table where Becky was waiting with a plate of French
fries.

As I tried to pull Alicia next to me, she veered
towards the crowded dancefloor, and the heavy drink wobbled in my hand. It was
like everything suddenly moved in slow motion: I could feel Alicia’s weight
pulling me one way, the gravitational force of the drink pulling me the other
way, my grip on both loosening, and then finally a last-ditch effort to keep
hold of both of them that ended in me losing control of both.

I decided the drink was a lost cause, and turned
towards Alicia, grabbing her by the elbow as she stumbled away from me. I
closed my eyes, waiting for the telltale crash of the fishbowl against the
floor, preparing myself for embarrassment.

When I never heard the crashing, I looked back to
where the drink should have fallen. Alicia bumped back into me, causing me to
stumble over slightly. To be honest, though, it wasn’t just Alicia’s drunken
antics that caused me to stumble: it was the sudden vision I had of a Norse god
holding my bright blue fishbowl drink, a devilish smile in his eyes.

“Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you with
this one,” said the tall, blonde, blue-eyed, Thor-like man as he held my drink
out to me. “I hope that second straw isn’t for your friend here?”

“Oh, no, she’s on a water diet for the next hour,” I
said, blushing bright red.
Jesus Christ,
this guy’s handsome,
I thought to myself as I grabbed the fishbowl. “The
second straw is for my other friend.”

“Oh, okay,” said the stranger. He eyed me up and down,
taking in my blue party dress and done-up hair, before giving me another smirk
and turning.

“Wait,” I said, trying to get his attention before he
disappeared into the crowd. For the first time in my life, I’d stumbled upon a
man who actually stopped me in my tracks with his good looks, and I wasn’t
about to let this opportunity get away. After all, my objective during the trip
was to kiss a random stranger, and I thought I’d found the random stranger for
me. “Can you help me with her? She’s a handful and…and I’m worried what’ll
happen if you’re not around to catch my drink next time.”

I prayed that what I’d said didn’t sound desperate or
anxious, but cool and flirty, like I intended. The stranger turned to me, a
glint of humor in his eyes.

“Should I be in charge of the drink, or the girl?” he
asked, giving me a lopsided grin. I felt myself blushing under his gaze. I’d
been so enamored with his boyish but burly good looks that I hadn’t actually
looked at the rest of him; as my eyes glanced over his long, tall body, my
heart sped up.

He was covered in tattoos, which poked out from under
his t-shirt and ran all along his arms, even on his knuckles. He wore tight,
black jeans and an equally tight t-shirt under a brown leather vest; his hairy,
muscular arms bulged under the sleeves of the shirt, and you could follow the
deep V of his body all the way down…

I automatically drew my eyes back up to his face,
embarrassed of myself for letting my attention wander in such an uncouth
direction. I grinned nervously. “The drink, please.”

The stranger took the drink from my hand and followed
me as I walked Alicia towards the table, where Becky was sitting with her hands
over her mouth, watching us and laughing at the Three Stooges-esque antics. She
gave me a look as I approached, one which I knew as well as the back of my
hand.

It was Becky’s
Really,
Samantha?
look, one she reserved for moments where she didn’t quite approve
of my decisions but also didn’t feel it necessary to step in and actually stop
me. I shot her one of my own patented
Yes,
Becky, Really,
looks. Alicia was looking at just about everyone with her
I Love You Guys So Much!
look, and as I
corralled her onto a seat she caught sight of the plate of French fries and
gave them the same look.

“Oh my God! Are these mine? Can I eat these? I’m so
hungry, guys,” Alicia said, not waiting for permission before grabbing a
handful and shoving them into her mouth. A look of drunken bliss came over her
and she laughed, her cute little laugh that made her so easy to forgive.

“Well, looks like everyone is safe, including the
drink,” the stranger said, setting the fishbowl gingerly on the table between
me and Becky. He stepped back, the same lopsided grin on his face.

“Well, thanks, uh…” I said, realizing he hadn’t told
me his name.

“Boon,” he said, holding his hand out. I took it in
mine, marveling at how large it was, and how powerful his grip was. Then, my
mind processed his name.
Boon? Oh come
on,
I thought, and raised an eyebrow as I looked back at him.

“Boon? Is that your real name?” I asked, blurting out
the words before really thinking about them or how rude they might sound.
Luckily, he seemed to have a sense of humor, and he chuckled and lifted his shoulders
slightly.

“I’ll admit, it ain’t my birth name, but it’s what I
go by, I swear,” he said, turning as if to go.

“Wait,” I called out, nearly falling off my seat to
catch him by the elbow. Becky was giving me a series of hilarious looks,
speaking to me in our silent best-friend body language, making fun of me for
being so desperate. “Let me buy you a drink. As a thanks. And a sorry, for
making fun of your name. I’m Samantha, by the way.”

“Well, you know, it wouldn’t be right of me to turn
down a free drink,” Boon said, shrugging.

“I’m Becky, by the way,” Becky said, suddenly, almost
too loudly, leaning in and holding her hand out to Boon. “And this beautiful
mess over here is Alicia.”

“Hi,” Boon said, taking Becky’s hand in his.

“Hi!” Alicia said from across the table, suddenly
coming to life after gorging on French fries. “We’re here from Missoooooooo-la,
where’re you from?”

“Drink some water, drunky,” Becky said, pushing a
glass of water towards Alicia, who responded by rolling her eyes and looking
back at Boon.

“Do you know where to get some
marijuana
?” she said, pronouncing the last word in a stage whisper
that could probably heard all the way on the street.

“Well, now, maybe I do. But I thought we were starting
with a drink? It’ll be a Seven and Seven for me, miss,” Boon said. I nodded
eagerly. I had no idea what a Seven and Seven was. It sounded cool. I hopped
out of the chair and walked to the bar, feeling my stomach full of butterflies.
I’d been right; this really
was
going
to change everything. Finally, I was feeling what other girls felt when they
met a handsome guy!

I looked back as I waited at the bar. Boon had taken
my seat and looked to be having an animated conversation with Alicia and Becky.
I felt a slight tremor of fear in my heart as I worried about leaving Alicia
alone with Boon; she always had this way of hooking guys she wanted, where I
had about as much guy-hooking experience as I did tightrope-walking experience.
Which is none, by the way.

The bartender came and took my order; I left a
generous tip, hoping he would remember me in the future, and made my way back
to the table.

“You stole my seat!” I said playfully as a way of
getting back into the conversation.

“Oh my GOD, Samantha, do you know where Stunner is
from?
Do you know
?” Alicia said,
leaning forward across the table and nearly grabbing the drink from my hand.

“Uh-uh, Leesh, you have 45 more minutes of water
drinking. And I think it’s Boon, isn’t it?” I said, handing the drink to Boon.
His fingers just grazed mine as he took it from me and I felt a flush through
my body. I grabbed my own straw in the fishbowl and drank greedily, suddenly
wanting to get very, very drunk, if only because my nervousness was starting to
get the better of me.

I never get
nervous around guys,
I thought to myself with some surprise. The alcohol flowed
straight to my stomach and I felt something like an explosion of warmth as it
began to spread through my veins.

“Okay, whatever, but he’s from
L.A.!
Los Angeles! The city of lights! Way bigger than Moooo-sola,” Alicia said,
slurring her words. I shook my head, didn’t bother trying to explain to her
that L.A. was not, generally, known as the City of Lights. Instead, I turned to
Boon.

“So, is that true? You’re here from Cali?” I’d literally never used the
word “Cali” before in my entire life. I just wanted to sound cool. I could feel
Becky’s eyes on me without having to look, and I knew she was giving me an
amused,
I Know What You’re Doing
look. It was all I could do not to kick her under the table so she would knock
it off. I love my friends, but right now I just wanted to get to know Boon,
without Alicia’s inspired slurring or Becky’s good-judgment radar.
 

“Just south of L.A., actually. Out in the desert. Where I’m from is
actually probably smaller than Missoula. I mean, I know it is. I’ve been to
Missoula. It’s a nice little city,” Boon said, pinning me in place with his
gorgeous eyes and sipping his drink slowly. I took another gulp of the blue
drink, but Becky pulled it away.

“I’m not taking care of
both
of
you,” Becky said, then laughed and took a huge swallow of her own. “What were
you doing in Missoula? Business? School?”

“Business,” Boon said, suddenly seeming a bit more uptight. The feeling
around the table definitely shifted, but the mood passed just as quickly as it
had come, and Boon leaned in as though to tell us a secret. “You know, I really
do know where to get some pot.”

“Oh my GOD, I want THAT, LET’S GO,” Alicia nearly screamed. She grabbed
Boon’s hand and pretended to drag him off, but he remained still in his seat,
chuckling.

“Maybe in a little while. What’s the rush? The night is young,” he said.
Alicia rolled her eyes but bounced back onto her seat and busied herself with
more French fries.

“So what brings you to Vegas? More business?” I asked, wanting to get
Boon’s attention back on me. Making out with a stranger was
my
goal for the week; if he also
happened to help Alicia fulfill
her
goal,
I would be happy for her, but tonight I was looking out for number 1.

“No, this trip is about pleasure. Lucky me,” he said with a grin. He took
another swallow of the drink and I realized that it was also the last sip of
the drink. I prepared myself for disappointment: he’d had his drink now, and
there was nothing keeping us here. He could leave or stay: I prepared myself
for the disappointment of him leaving.

“Can I just say,” Boon began, staring into the empty glass, “that this
has been the worst Seven and Seven I’ve ever had. But, I’m a firm believer in
second chances. I wouldn’t feel right leaving without giving the bartender
another shot at making a decent drink.”

“That’s very kind of you,” I said jokingly, elated that he seemed to be
planning on staying. At least for one more drink…

~
5
~

One more drink turned into three, turned into another fishbowl for me and
Becky, turned into two light beers for Alicia, who we were still keeping an eye
on. She’d sobered up considerably, though, and was actually using real words
and full sentences. Plus, she seemed to have picked up on my M.O. for the night
and had backed off flirting with Boon, instead playing her version of a
wingman, which was admittedly a little embarrassing.

“Samantha, tell that story about you and the saltines,” she’d say,
draping an arm over me. Rolling my eyes and laughing, I remembered it as just
another goofy high school antic. Boon leaned in, though, seeming interested.

“It’s really not that great a story,” I said, blushing at his interest.

“It’s actually a pretty good story. One of Missoula’s best, I’d say,”
Becky said demurely, pulling her own weight in this apparently collective
effort to score me a kiss with Mr. Heartthrob. Boon’s eyes danced, obviously
amused and eager to hear.

“It’s
really
not that great a
story,” I repeated, burying my head in my hands. It really wasn’t that great a
story, by the way, it was just one of my
only
stories.

“So, you know saltines? Like, for soup? Well, they always gave them out
at lunchtime, you know, and so Samantha here had this brilliant idea of hording
saltines all senior year for…what? What was your plan, again?” Alicia nudged
me, laughing at how red my face was.

“I was going to throw them all in the swimming pool,” I said, gritting my
teeth.
This story is so dumb, he is going
to think I’m such a loser…

“Oh, right, yeah, chlorine soup! So, Samantha’s big idea for the senior
prank is to fill the school swimming pool with saltines. Which would have been
a pretty good one, I’ll admit, even though I’ll never understand why you didn’t
want to just
buy
a lot of saltines,
like a normal person…”

“Wait, wait, your school has a swimming pool? I didn’t know they had
those at high schools,” Boon said with a laugh. Becky nodded emphatically.

“Oh yeah, we have the best swim team in the state,” she said, a hint of
pride in her voice. It occurred to me that we were still so attached to our
ra-ra high school mentality that we still wanted to take pride in dumb things
like having a good swim team. None of us were even on the swim team.

“Anyway, so Samantha is hustling these saltines every day at lunch, and
she’s hording them all in her locker. Like, why bring them home? You can just
stuff saltines in your locker, right? That makes so much sense,” Alicia said,
sarcasm dripping. Boon chuckled again and I caught his eye, the blush still in
full bloom.

“But, like, there’s only so many saltines one locker can hold,” Becky
said demurely, a mischievous grin on her face.

“And we keep telling her, like, yo, Samantha, girl, take those damn
saltines out of your locker before it explodes! But, of course, Sammy never
listens to her friends. Even when they are totally right. So, anyway, it’s
almost April and Samantha’s locker is so full of saltines that she can’t even
keep her books in it anymore, and she only opens it to throw more saltines in.

Until one day this dealer kid gets caught with a bunch of pills, and all
the parents in town start
freaking
out
about it, and they decide to do a full sweep of everyone’s locker to find out
if anyone else is dealing on school grounds,” Alicia said, her eyes getting
wider and her voice louder as she told the story.

“But, of course, they do it right in the middle of the day, with no
warning!” Becky said, joining in with a giggle.

“So when they get to dear Samantha’s locker, you can just about see her
pissing her pants, and there’s just this absolute
deluge
of saltines flying from everywhere. The principle, all the
teachers, they’re all standing around while all these individually wrapped
saltines just flow out of the locker, for like, a good minute and a half, just
all making this huge messy pile on the floor. Finally, it slows to a trickle
and everyone is just standing looking at Samantha and all these saltines, and…”

“And the principle turned to me and asked me ‘what on earth is this?’ and
all I could think so say is ‘crackers’, but I say it really soft so he goes
‘what?’ and suddenly I just freak out and yell ‘CRACKERS’ right in the middle
of the hallway and everyone just goes nuts,” I said, finishing the story with a
bang. Boon was eating it up, a big grin on his face, his eyes locked on mine.

“But the best part of the story,” Becky said, leaning back, “is that the
school administration decided that Samantha hadn’t broken any rules but that
she definitely needed to be punished, so they made her head of the anti-drug
poster project, making posters for the school hallways to discourage kids from
doing drugs.”

“And let me guess…” Boon said, his eyes still on me, drink halfway to his
oh-so-kissable lips.

“Why try crack when you can have crackers?”

“Don’t snack on crack!”

“Buy crackers, not crack.”

“Choose a saltier high.”

“Say yes to crackers, say nope to dope,” I said, finishing out the story
with a hearty flourish. Becky, Alicia, and I were all in a fit now, almost
crying from laughing so hard. Boon was laughing, too, though not quite as hard.

“Okay, okay, come on. Now, you’ve got to have some awesome high school
stories,” I said, wiping the tears from my eyes and returning to my staring
contest with Boon. His smile faded a bit and he took a long swallow from his
drink.

“Nope, never went to high school,” he said, clearly feeling a little
awkward.

“Oh, did you get your GED or home schooling or something?” Alicia asked
cheerfully.

“Nah, school just wasn’t for me,” Boon said, breaking eye contact and
looking out over the crowd.

“Didn’t your parents get upset?” Becky asked. I could tell she was
getting pretty drunk; sober Becky is usually pretty tactful, and this was
clearly a subject that Boon didn’t want to dwell on.

“Well, I guess you could say I just got drafted into the family business,
so no. My dad didn’t even want me going. Said it would pollute my mind,” Boon
said. “So, ladies, are you still looking for some, eh, party favors?”

We looked at him, dumbfounded, none of us quite sure what he meant. He
chuckled again and shook his head slowly.

“Man, you girls are too cute. You still want weed?”

“Oh, yes! Please! Oh my god, that’s like, the whole reason I came on this
trip!” Alicia squealed. I wasn’t so interested in the weed, but I was
definitely interested in going wherever Boon was going.

“Okay, little miss, but you should know, the guys I hang around with
aren’t the sort of guys you’re probably used to,” Boon said, his brow suddenly
furrowing. I could feel Becky tensing up beside me. She smelled danger. So did
I, but I ignored it. Like the smell of smoke that tells you your house is
burning down, I ignored it.

“What do you mean?” I asked, jumping in before Becky could protest.

“Oh, they’ll treat you alright, if you’re with me. But they’re…a rough
crowd,” Boon said tactfully. My stomach did a flip-flop. Was this going to be
worth it? Putting myself at risk – for what? For a make-out with a stranger?
There were
tons
of strangers around
me. I could pick anyone else at that bar and get the same thing I could get
from Boon. Except…not really. I knew he was different. I knew because I’d never
wanted anyone before.

And I wanted him.

“Well, I’m not afraid,” Alicia said, straightening up in her seat and
gathering her purse. “Shall we?”

“Guys, I don’t know,” Becky said, sipping her drink and looking at us
with nervous eyes.

“Trust me, it’s perfectly safe,” Boon said, looking at Becky. She
softened under his assured gaze, much to my relief. With all of us on board, we
closed out our tab and took to the streets.