Hell on Heelz (Asphalt Gods' MC) (13 page)

Rage

This Go-Mart had all the different creamers and syrups for the coffee, so I was happily mixing a sweet concoction when some jerk cleared his throat behind me. I didn’t turn my head. The fucker could wait his turn just like I had. In fact, I slowed down, taking my sweet ass time. Fuck me, there was even whipped cream and sprinkles.

When I topped my coffee with some, the man waiting behind me spoke up. “Honey, if I knew you loved cream so much…”

Recognizing the voice, I spun around about spilling my coffee. Just like I’d suspected, there stood Mud. He was about on top of me, like he’d never heard of personal space. However, his charming smile appeared as he loomed over me. It pleased me for a moment and that caused me to scowl. What the hell was this anyway, an ambush? I looked both ways, wanting to run but without my lid, I’d spill my coffee. I tiptoed to peer over him and found he was alone. What the hell did he plan to do to me, drag me out of a crowded gas station? It was broad day light after all.

I turned around and grabbed a lid. “Are you stalking me?”

“Nah, I live around here.” He put his buff tattooed arm between me and my way to the cashier.

Rolling my eyes, I huffed then turned into him, sipping my coffee. I had to pay for it and prepay for gas, but he was in my way. My bike was out at the pumps, sitting on empty so I couldn’t just set the coffee down and leave. Smiling back at him, but evilly so, I warned him, “You know all I’ll have to do is scream, and they’ll push that little button under the register.”

Mud backed up but not enough. “I’m not taking you in.”

“Damn straight you aren’t.” I started to go pay the lady when he snatched my arm. Oh, hell, I hated it when a man grabbed a woman like that. I tore my arm away. “Watch yourself. What the hell do you want?”

“I just remembered you owe me.” His eyebrows raised as he said it.

“Come again?”

His smile returned. “You’re supposed to go mudding with me, remember?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Haven’t you heard? We’re sworn enemies.”

“It’s not like that,” he strained all serious. Mud’s blue glass eyes, locked onto mine. “I’m asking you out as a man, no colors. A man asking a woman.”

Something in me fluttered at the sound of that—just me, not the Heel. Screwing my lips together, I wasn’t too sure I should buy it. Although, when I studied his expression, I saw nothing but sincerity. Gazing in his eyes, I recognized the lust in them and a flush warmed my skin.

Regardless, the idea was ridiculous.

I broke our gaze. “I’m sorry. I’m not, no way, into… mudding.” I giggled a bit thinking of me getting that dirty on purpose
.

Here I was giggling again.

“Okay, maybe another time.” He stepped aside and let me pass.

I went to the cashier, all flustered. Was he just letting me go? I remembered our exploration from a couple nights ago a little too fondly as I sat my coffee on the counter.

“That all?” The lady behind the register asked.

“Twelve on pump three,” I told her as she rang up my dollar coffee. I dug in my pocket for exact change.

As I pushed the door to exit, Mud stepped in line with a twelve-pack of Miller Light and a bag of Doritos. Clutching my coffee in one hand and keys in the other, I walked to my bike in a dreamy state. No matter how shitty this week had been, it always felt good to know you can still attract a man like Mud. And who was Mud, I had no idea, but he was gorgeous and by all accounts so far, a gentleman, I decided. At least about as good as you got when it came to the one percenters.

Rounding pump two, I about bumped into a blue sedan—a blue sedan parked in place of my motorcycle. I snapped out of my daze and surveyed the lot. My motorcycle wasn’t on it.

Fuck me. No, fuck Mud!

He walked out of the gas station, heading toward his own bike, hidden away by the air pump—like he had something to hide. Plus, his back was to me as if he was trying his best not to look my way. Livid, I ran, trying to catch him before he could leave. I got to him just as he started his hog. “Motherfucker, where the fuck is my ride?”

He looked around the lot, but not to right where it’d been sitting. His brow crinkled like he was surprised it was gone too.

“Don’t play dumb!”

“It wasn’t me.” He stood, and I saw he was carrying, but I also noticed for the first time he wasn’t wearing his colors.

My cut was somewhere in Louisiana thanks to him, not that I’d wear it traveling alone through Alabama. I put my hand under my tank top, touching my gun tucked at the small of my back. “Is this your idea of a sick joke? Just tell me where my ride is.”

“I don’t have the slightest. But don’t worry, I’ll get it back. Come with me. We don’t have to go mudding.” He offered his hand.

“Is this how you get dates? Steal their rides?” I was outraged.

“You think I stole your old hog to get you to go out with me?” Mud’s voice hovered between insulted and amused.

“Never know these days.”

“You think I have to strand women to get them to go out with me?”

Lord, no, I thought. “Well, did you?”

“No, but I’m kicking myself for not thinking of it. Trust me, I know this town, and you were inside too long. My apologies there. Your bike is probably on its way to my bud’s junk yard. If not, I’ll put the word out. You’ll get your Harley back.”

“Why would you do that for me?”

“Why not?”

I gave him a bewildered look because it was obvious, we were enemies. Just days ago, he shot my friend and would’ve killed us both.

He didn’t seem to care, instead asked, “You need a ride?”

I took my hand off my gun, finally believing that he didn’t know where my bike was. I crossed my arms. “No.”

“Alright then.” Mud was about to leave, but he paused. “Oh, here,” he said, reaching in his pocket and pulling out my knife, my dad’s knife I hadn’t retrieved when I escaped.

More thankful than he could know, I took it.

Mud started his bike.

I didn’t have another dime to my name, no phone and no friends in Alabama. I was sure the lady in the gas station would let me use their phone just because I was a woman in need, but I wasn’t looking forward to waiting in this parking lot for one of my sister’s to pick me up, especially on a Friday night. Then there’d be more ridicule waiting for me at the Roost. Not only did I get Dixie killed, Sugar shot and lost Scar and Anne Marie, now, I’d gone and lost my bike too.

“Can you really get my Harley back?” I asked Mud too eagerly.

“Said I could,” he came back. “I’ll put my brothers on the case.”

“For a Heel?”

“They don’t have to know who it’s for.”

I climbed on the back of his hog, wrapping my arms around him. Yes, I was giving in and wanted him to know it. “So, where are you taking me tonight. We can’t go to your clubhouse.”

“I know a place.”

“This better not be any of that Netflix and chill stuff.”

“Netflix? How about Imax and climax.”

I punched his back. He took off. I held on tight to the big guy. The wind took my hair, the restraints of being a Heel and my worries flying away with it.

Nestled in the middle of nowhere was a cabin not too different than mine at the Heelz, just bigger. A muddy 4x4 sat in the gravel driveway. It’d taken almost a half hour’s ride to get here from the Go Mart. I’d held onto Mud’s firm waist the whole time and didn’t feel degraded one bit by sitting in the bitch seat. What I did feel was anticipation. Would we pick up where we’d left off? Thinking about making out with him before, the rumble of the bike beneath me and knowing I wouldn’t be running away this time had me horny before we even arrived. Mud let me inside but was on his cell with the junk yard right away.

“Your bike’s not there.” He disappeared to the back to make another call, and I figured it was to the club to ask them to look for my ride. When he came back, he assured me, “They’ll let me know as soon as they find it. Until then, I have some steaks I planned on grilling, some beer.” He moved to the kitchen and put the beer in the fridge.

I followed him. “You don’t live with the Gods?” It was a bit forward, but he’d asked me to come out with him as a woman. Regular women didn’t know we couldn’t talk about club life to outsiders.

“Do you live with the Heelz?” He answered me with his own question.

“Yes, I do. Have for a couple of years.”

He raised his eyebrows at my openness. “That’s about how long I’ve been patched, since I was twenty.”

I swallowed hard. “You’re twenty-two?” I was seriously taken aback but tried not to show it.

“Twenty-three since my birthday last month. I guess it’s been three years now, but I’ve been with the Gods way longer than that.”

Shit, I was robbing the cradle. He was so young, but a mountain of a man. I guess the beard made him look older. I thought back to when I was twenty-three. I had twins by then, so maybe I shouldn’t let his age bother me.

He also knew enough not to ask a woman’s age. Instead, Mud offered me a beer right away. After the few days I’d had, even a light beer tasted mighty good.

After I’d escaped Mud, I drove to the closest hospital to find Sugar. My friend lay in the ICU, and they weren’t allowing visitors. I slept in the waiting room until they let me see him the next day. They moved him to a regular room that next evening. I called Legs when I was sure Sugar would be okay.

“Glad you two are alive. We weren’t sure. Heard Dixie’s dead.” Legs sounded too much like Shirley, reminding me I’d never speak to her again.

“Scar killed her.”

Legs didn’t say anything for a really long time.

I wondered what she thought of him now. Did it still matter he was Star’s dad?

“You need a lift?” She asked when she finally spoke again.

“No.” I had my bike.

“You need money?”

“No,” I lied.

“You need protection? Mutherfukers are on their way home too.” Meaning did I want some Mutherfukers to escort me back.

“Hell no!” Her even asking meant she’d struck some deal with them.

“We’ll talk when you get here. Come on home.”

“What about Sugar?”

“Pepper’s already half way back to Louisiana. I’ll have her fetch him.”

Oh, really? I wondered what trouble was brewing now since Legs hadn’t known if we were still breathing. I guess she sent Pepper to avenge our deaths—unlikely.

Sugar asked when he woke up. “Did you have to give it up to that hunk to save my ass?”

“No, but I would have.” I laughed.

Jason clutched my hand and told me with a tear in his eye, “I wasn’t ready to go, so thanks for getting me here.”

I kissed his cheek.

“I mean it, Edie, I’m leaving the Heelz if this keeps up. People dying, I didn’t sign up for that. I just wanted sisterhood, to live in the moment with you girls and be free. This bullshit Shirley has gotten us into will kill us all. We haven’t lived in a long time. We are dying. You’ve got to go back and stake your claim. You don’t realize it, but Edie is still in there. If you’re president, we can survive.”

I headed back to Florida with very little cash but a lot on my mind. It’d been a while since I’d been happy with the club, if I’d ever been. There was very little sisterhood anymore and the moments we did live in weren’t the happy ones. We lived to forget. I’d spent the last two years hiding because I’d killed Kelly. Sugar was right about us all heading toward death. Nevertheless, I didn’t know what I should do about it.

I hadn’t eaten anything but a greasy egg and cheese biscuit at the hospital cafeteria, but at least I was clean, having taken a shower in Sugar’s hospital room.

With all that had happened, the Banshee and Dixie dead, Sugar shot and club business hanging over me like a cartoon anvil, I couldn’t believe I felt thankful to have gotten a shower because I was on a “date” with a young stud.

But if anything, I was living instead of dying.

I followed Mud to the back deck where we quickly finished one beer each. It felt good just to sit and stare out at his huge pond and not worry about the club or Legs. I wasn’t even worried about Sugar since the doctor had said he’d be okay. I’d even called my kids from the hospital and told them I’d be up for Christmas. They were so happy. It was a promise I wouldn’t break.

Mud sat across from me, staring out at the water too. He seemed pretty relaxed. I barely knew the guy, and we were enjoying a comfortable silence. I closed my eyes. “It sure is hot for October,” I remarked, loving the cool breeze passing over me.

“It’s one of our record hot days here in Alabama. Won’t have more than one or two of them. Last November was chillier than a witch’s tit.”

“Never gets too cold in Florida.”

“How’s your friend?”

“The one you shot? He’ll live.” I didn’t open my eyes to see his reaction, and I wondered if he really cared or if he was making small talk. A minute of silence passed before I asked. “How’s your head?” I opened my eyes that made contact with his this time.