CULVER: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (9 page)

I sat, turning the story around and around in my
brain. I imagined Boon as a young boy, a pre-teen, on the back of his father’s
bike, fleeing the scene of the crime. I imagined two bodies, pools of blood. I
imagined my father standing over a dead cop. I imagined flashbulbs taking
pictures. I imagined a woman.

“How awful,” I finally managed to squeak out. Mom
nodded gravely.

“Your father has his reasons, Samantha.”

“I’m sorry I scared you, baby. I am. I…I lost my cool.
I just saw his face and it all came swimming back. All that blood…and me with a
little girl at home and…I just, I lost it. I know, I went about it the wrong
way. That was wrong of me. But I need you to understand…”

“I do, Daddy. I understand. I…get it. But…but what if
he’s not like his dad? What if he’s different?” I regretted the questions as
soon as they left my mouth. Dad’s face grew cold again.

“I don’t want you to take that risk, Samantha. Now,
you know my side, I don’t want you to go digging for his. I’m serious about
this, Samantha, this is not up for negotiations. You are never to contact that
boy again. If he knows what’s good for him, he’s halfway to Portland by now,
anyway. Samantha, if you care about me at all, you’ll promise, right here and
right now, that you’ll let this go. You’ll have a good summer and meet a nice
local boy and go to school and forget all about him.”

Dad’s face was cement, a brick wall, impenetrable. He
meant all of this from the bottom of his heart. I could tell that. From the way
he was speaking, from the look in his eyes, this was serious business. What
could I do? I nodded.

“I promise, Dad,” I said, vaguely aware, in the back
of my mind, that I was making a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.

~
18
~

I didn’t exactly get sent to my room after that, but
it was clear the BBQ was off and I needed time to think. I didn’t call Alicia
and Becky right away. There was enough for me to process on my own, without
calling in extra opinions.

Dad’s story made sense: it made sense that he would
react so violently to seeing Boon. It made sense why he wanted me to steer
clear of him. It made sense in so many ways. It also made sense for me to
follow his order never to see Boon again: it was clear, now, that he really was
up to no good, at least as far as his gang was concerned. A few puffs on a
joint was one thing, but heroin? Identity theft? Those were serious, serious
things. And I was fresh out of high school: I had no business getting involved
in any of that.

But then…he must have been so young then. He couldn’t
really have had anything to do with all that. And was it really fair to judge
the son by the sins of the father? He’d found me, come all that way, just to
see me…didn’t that say
something
about
him? He hadn’t needed to do all that: he could have just forgotten all about
me, about our time together. It didn’t mean that he was a great guy, per say,
but it meant
something,
right?

I paced my room, hands in fists. Suddenly, I
remembered what Boon had slipped into my palm; I’d forgotten all about it. I
dug my fingers into my pocket. It was small, square…pulling it out, I saw that
it was a matchbox.
Gateway Inn,
it
read on the front. So I knew where he was staying now. Whatever good that did
me.
It does you no good at all, because
you’re not going to see him,
I thought with one part of my brain.

Now you know
where he is, you can see him, ask him,
thought another part. I groaned and threw the
matchbook on the bed. I texted Alicia and Becky, asking them to log back on to
Skype. In seconds, we were in another video call.

I told them the story my father had told me. I watched
their faces anxiously, making note of every expression and reaction. Becky had
her eyes narrowed, following the story with concern. Alicia was leaning
forward, wide-eyed, hanging on every word. When I finished, no one said
anything for a long while.

“So…I mean, what do I do?” I finally asked, dying to
hear their opinions.

“Go see him tonight,” Alicia said, nodding as though
there could be no argument. I looked at Becky through the computer. She was biting
her lip. I’d expected her to jump in immediately with “no way” or “don’t even
think about it” and was surprised at her silence.

“Beck?” I questioned, prompting her.

“I don’t know, honest, I don’t. I mean, the sane part
of me says Alicia is a moron and you should stay as far away from him as
possible but…I mean, you’re kind of right. It’s not
really
fair to judge him by his dad, and if that’s all your dad is
doing…I mean…I have my reservations about this whole thing, but, like, if I
really thought he was a worthless asshole, I would never have let us go to that
bar in the first place. There’s
something
good about him, at least.”

“Plus, I mean, don’t you remember when his friends
were talking? They were saying that he and his dad were on the outs…remember?
Remember his face after he talked to his dad? He wasn’t happy,” Alicia said.

“How can you even remember that? You were high as a
kite,” Becky said to Alicia, who promptly rolled her eyes.

“C’mon guys, you know I’m not as dumb as I look,” she
said. She was right; for someone who acted ditsy a lot of the time, Alicia was
actually really smart, and she had remembered that moment when even I’d
forgotten about it.

“Well, I mean, that’s true, he did look…I mean, but
why are we even talking about this? My parents probably won’t ever let me leave
the house again, and I’m definitely not going anywhere tonight,” I said,
realizing that we could discuss it until the end of time and Boon would probably
still be gone in the morning.

“Call him, ask him to stay, just for a while,” Alicia
said. “Do it now!”

Becky nodded, not quite convinced but clearly willing
to support me.

“If it’s what you want, Samantha, you have to. We’ll
stay on the computer with you while you do it, if you want.”

I reached for my phone, hand shaking. I pulled up the
texts Boon had sent me and called the number that sent them. There was no
ringtone, it went straight to voicemail. And it wasn’t even his voice on the
message, just an automated voice. He could have been using a burner phone for
all I knew. I hung up, shaking my head.

“It’s off,” I said.

“Text him,” Alicia pressed, excitement in her voice.

“Well, what do I say? ‘Sorry my dad tried to shoot
you, why don’t you sit around for a few days until I’m allowed outside’?”

“Just…well, I mean, just say, like ‘please don’t leave
yet’. Tell him you want to talk,” Becky suggested. I tapped the message out
quickly, not wanting to give it another second to doubt myself.

The message sent, I put my phone down. Looking back up
at my friends’ faces, I was at a loss.

“Well, what now?”

“Now…just wait,” Alicia said, shrugging.
Great, my favorite thing, waiting,
I
thought, irritated and nervous. What if he never turned his phone back on? What
if he did, and saw the message, and didn’t respond? What if he did?

Two hours later, he hadn’t texted me back. An hour
later, my phone buzzed. My heart leapt up to my teeth. I closed my eyes as I
picked it up:

Any news?

It was just Alicia. I sighed, both relieved and
disappointed. I responded quickly, then threw my phone to the side and returned
to what I’d been doing for the last three hours: pacing around my room, trying
to read magazines, flipping through TV channels. It was pure torture. It was a
million times worse than taking the SATs, a billion times worse than waiting
for college acceptance letters.

I lay in bed, hands behind my head, trying to think of
everything and nothing at the same time. At some point, much to my own
surprise, I fell asleep. As I slept, I dreamt, one of the strangest dreams of
my life.

In the dream, I was riding a motorcycle through a huge
suburban town: it wasn’t Missoula, though I suppose it could have been. It
wasn’t, really, anywhere. I had my arms clutched around the man driving the
motorcycle, my cheek pressed against his back. I didn’t know where we were
going, who it was.

I knew it was a cop, from the hat he was wearing and
the blue uniform. I could feel his muscles, tense and strong, under his
clothing as my hands roamed across his torso. I could have sworn, once I woke
up, that I could really feel the way the bike hummed and shook underneath me.
As we drove on, the suburbs dropped away, turning to wide, flat desert.

“Where are we going?” I remember asking in the dream.
I looked down; I was suddenly naked, the hot leather of the seat pressing and
buzzing against my clit, my thighs shaking, my slit wet. The driver turned to
me. It was, of course, Boon. Who else could it have been?

In that special way that dreams have of making no
sense and total sense at the same time, he turned all the way in his seat but
still managed to keep the bike running down the long, straight road. He was
still wearing the cop’s hat but was otherwise naked, as well. Even in a dream,
I could recreate every inch of his toned, hot body. My hands flew to his chest,
tracing the two guns tattooed on his pectorals. I leaned forward, feeling his
flesh under my lips as my hands traced down, down, his long, triangular torso,
lower, lower…

And then his hands were on my arms, gripping me
tightly, almost too tightly, as he pulled me upwards, our eyes meeting in a
moment of singular intensity.

“The cliff,” he said, releasing one of my arms to cup
my face and draw me close to him, our lips growing nearer and nearer. The dream
slowed down, but the bike didn’t, and I saw, over his shoulder, the horizon
suddenly falling away as the road ran off into nowhere: we were, indeed,
approaching a cliff, and would soon drive right off it.

Even as I saw this, my lips were drawing close to
Boon’s, tantalizingly slowly, my dream-self crying out in anticipation, until
we met, mouths parted, and the sky broke open into forty million pieces and the
bike ran off the cliff and we were falling together, tongues entwined, flesh
dancing, tumbling down and down into the abyss…

I woke to a sound that could almost have been rain:
plink. Plink. Plink.

I rose to my elbows, shaking my head, lost in a
post-nap fugue. I felt sweaty, clammy, and uncomfortable: I’d fallen asleep in
my tank top and shorts but still felt like I was overheating in my bed. The
noise continued, and I realized it was coming from my window.
Plink. Plink. Plink.

Getting up to investigate, I saw what was causing the
noise: tiny rocks hitting my window. My heart skipped a beat. Legends tell of
boys performing such strange rituals in the hope of attaining the favor of a
lady…Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

“Samantha! Get your ass up!”

Nope. Alicia, wherefore art thou Alicia.

“Holy shit, Alicia, we’re supposed to be sneaky here,”
came Becky’s voice in a loud whisper. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself as
I threw the window open. They were standing on my lawn, hands full of pebbles, and
both looked up at me as I popped my head out.

“Guys, you could have just texted me,” I said in a
stage whisper, not wanting my parents to hear.

“Go get it,” Alicia said, making a shooing gesture at
Becky, who promptly ran from the lawn towards the street.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked, leaning forward
further to try and see where Becky was going.

“Jailbreak, baby,” Alicia said. “We’re going to get
your man!”

“Shhh! Oh my God, no, I can’t! And why are you
screaming? My parents will hear!” I called out, trying to be loud enough for
Alicia to hear me while still being quiet enough for my parents not to.
Suddenly, Becky’s shadow fell across the lawn, accompanied by…something else.
She reappeared, clearly struggling, carrying a huge ladder. I hit my forehead
with my palm.

My friends are
beautiful, beautiful morons,
I thought to myself, not quite believing that the girls had
actually thought this scheme was a good idea. I can just imagine the
conversation:

“We’ll sneak her out of her bedroom with a ladder and
whisk her away to the hotel where her leather-clad admirer is staying and then
he’ll ride off into the sunset with her on the back of his bike and we’ll be
the maids of honor at their wedding and she’ll have a billion babies and we’ll
help her raise them all and date his hot friends.”

“Yes, amazing plan, that will definitely work.”

This had to be mostly Alicia’s idea. A grand,
ridiculous, teenage cliché like this could only have been cooked up by a mind
as dramatic as hers. Becky probably figured out the logistics. I had to
suppress a laugh as they struggled with the ladder, trying to anchor it safely
in the ground and lean it against my window.

“You could help, you know,” Becky called up. I
realized I was just watching them dumbly and leaned out more, grabbing the top
of the ladder and pulling it towards me. The sound of the metal against the
side of the house should have been enough to get my parent’s attention even if
the girls’ loud voices didn’t.

But it wasn’t like I could turn back now: the ladder
was set up, Becky and Alicia were waiting, and after the dream I’d had I
couldn’t imagine spending the rest of the night in my room. Clamoring out the
window, heart racing, fear of heights kicking in, I could only think one thing:
shit.

I drew myself down the ladder slowly, putting one foot
behind the other, only panicking once (I was pretty proud of myself,
considering I once had to be helped down the high dive at the local swimming
pool).

When my feet hit the grass, I nearly fell over with
relief. We all stared up at the ladder as it reached up the side of the house.

“Do we just leave it here, so I can get back in?” I
asked, slightly out of breath. Alicia shrugged.