SAVING REBEL: Renegade Rebels Motorcycle Club (10 page)

Rebel and I had grown up here.  Our parents had bought a house here when they first got together, the clubhouse being our secondary home.  Unfortunately, the courts auctioned it off after they went to jail, but every time I came back, I couldn’t help but feel a bit of nostalgia as I drove down the streets of the Cliff.

I pulled up in front of a house around the corner from the cemetery and told Rebel to get out.

“What’s this?” she asked, looking around.

“I need to drop you here.  I have an unexpected meeting I have to attend.  At the cemetery around the corner.  Just sit your ass on this curb and wait for me.  I shouldn’t be more than ten minutes.”

“Oh.  Um…”  she looked as if she was going to argue with me, but the look on my face made her stop short.  “Sure, Harley, whatever you say.”

“Thank you.  I’ll be right back. Stay here and don’t fucking go anywhere, understand?”

“Sure, sure…”  she obeyed like a well-trained dog, setting her backpack on the sidewalk, and promptly sitting on the curb.

“Alright.  I’m gonna leave my bike here, too.  Be right back.”

I walked around the corner to the cemetery, ignored the no trespassing sign, and hopped the chain-link fence.

Johnny was already waiting for me, standing outside of the fenced off area where Clyde Barrow’s grave was located.  He looked like your typical low-rider gang banger - baggie khakis, shiny pointy loafers, a red bandana around his forehead and a button-up shirt, buttoned up all the way to his tattooed neck.

He stood with a slouch, one hand in his pocket, probably fingering his gun, and yet smiling the friendliest smile at me as I walked up.

“He was buried in the same plot as his brother,”  I told him.

“Yeah, I see that.  What a crazy life he led, huh?”

“I guess.  Back when life was simpler and people only fought over money, mostly.  It’s so much easier to make money now that you don’t have to rob a bank to do it,” I said.

“Ain’t that the truth,” he replied.

“So what’s up, Johnny? What’s so important that you couldn’t tell Mason over the phone?”  I couldn’t help but think about Rebel, she was bound to wander off at anytime. 

“The cartel contacted us.  Said they had something come up.  Need to reschedule our meeting for Saturday at noon, same meeting place - the Mercury Warehouse in Deep Ellum.”

“Okay, fine. That gives us more time to prepare.  And we can still have Maverick’s birthday party Friday night.”

He nodded at me, his eyes still trained on the grave in front of him.

“You and your men are invited, Johnny.  Mi casa es tu casa, you know.”

“Thank you for your hospitality, Harley.  I’ll tell the boys.  We’ll be there.  And then on Saturday morning, if you need anything from us at all, you just let us know.”

“No, I want you to go in and do the deal as you normally would.  The less you and your boys know, the better.  I don’t want the cartel knowing you tipped us off.  Less heat on you.”

“Alright, but you know we can handle a lot of heat, Harley, but I appreciate that. We’ll see you Friday night, but remember, we’ll have your back, just in case.”

“Thank you, my friend.”

We shook hands, and I turned to walk away.

“I’m in a hurry, Johnny, but I’ll see you Friday night!”

“Have a good day, Harley.”

I hopped the fence and ran around the corner to the bike, my heart racing with worry that Rebel had done something stupid and wouldn’t be there.

But she was.  

And the sight of her made me laugh out loud. She was straddling my bike, her hands gripping the handlebars, and looking over her shoulder at me.

“Hey, remember when you and Mason taught me to ride?”

“Of course I do. How could I forget?”

“Yeah…it was pretty awesome.  I haven’t had a chance to ride again since I was twelve. Maybe you can give me a quick refresher and let me ride your bike around?”

“Hell fucking no.  You’re not riding my bike, sorry.”

She hopped off, crossed her arms, and began pouting like a schoolgirl.

“Fine, I’ll just get Mason to show me.”

“Oh, my god.  Shut up. Alright, I’ll give you a refresher.”

“Sweet, thanks!”  She jumped off the curb, got on behind me with her backpack, and I started the bike with a thunderous roar.  Of course she wanted to ride, I thought to myself.  It’s in her blood.

“Put your things away, and then meet me in the garage,” I told her, after I turned off the bike in the driveway of my house in East Dallas.  On the drive over, I had contemplated if what I was about to do was a good idea, but I knew it would make Rebel insanely happy, and I figured if I could find a way to trust her, maybe she would prove to be trustworthy.

Besides, she needed a way to get around.  And she was a grown woman now, despite the occasional pouting.

When she walked into the garage, he mouth dropped open when she saw me.

“No fucking way!” she squealed.

“Yep,”  I said, smirking.

“I can’t believe it!  You still have my bike!  It looks amazing, Harley!”  She threw her arms around me, kissing my cheek quickly, and then turning her attention to the bright red, shiny Harley 250 that my dad, Mason and I had restored for her years ago. 

I couldn’t bear to part with it over the years, so I had kept it covered up in my garage, occasionally polishing it and starting it up, tinkering with it now and then.  

“Yeah, well, nobody else wants a tiny Harley but you.  So, here you go.  Since you aren’t twelve anymore, you can have it.  Sorry, I know you were supposed to get it for your sixteenth birthday, but I guess things didn’t exactly work out that way.”

I felt bad, the lost years flooding my memory, and I wished I had done so much more for Rebel.  Hell, I wished I had done anything, but instead I had been a selfish asshole.  She was my sister, after all.

“No, it’s okay, Harley, really.  Thank you so much, I’m so excited I could pee my pants!”  She danced around the bike, her eyes lit up with happiness, and I couldn’t help but smile as I watched her.

“You know, I don’t think I forgot much at all.  I’ve ridden in my dreams for years…”  her voice trailed off wistfully, as she jumped on the bike, her hands fondling every inch of the shiny, classic machine.

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Harley standing next to my old bike.  Watching my dad and Mason and Harley restore that bike for me, painting it a bright cherry red at my request, was one of my fondest memories.

I did help, a little, but my dad was using that project to teach Mason and Harley how to restore and I was strictly forbidden to interfere once they were deep into it.  I wasn’t supposed to learn how to ride it until I was sixteen, but Mason and Harley couldn’t stand the thought of waiting anymore than I could, and we had many opportunities to take it out of the garage when our old man wasn’t around.

Still, it took me weeks to convince them to teach me to ride.  They both knew they would get a beating if they got caught putting me on a bike, as both my mom and dad were beyond adamant that I wait till I was sixteen.  But the concept of waiting what seemed like a lifetime to three kids was torturous and impossible.  

So, they gave in to my constant nagging, insisting I wear full leathers and a helmet every single time, and they went about  patiently taught me to ride, each of them running along at my side as I puttered along, the bike lurching and jerking every which way until it all finally came together in my head, and I was riding around the parking lot of Walmart all by myself.

I had never been happier than that day.  The freedom! The feeling of independence, for the very first time.  It was addictive and intoxicating, and I begged for more at every opportunity.

I had even started a countdown until my sixteenth birthday, where I was planning on pretending that I knew nothing about riding, so I could let my dad teach me and then I wouldn’t have to hide it from my parents.  I could go to school on my bike, to the mall, anywhere I wanted to go.  It sounded like heaven, and to my twelve year old brain, it sounded like a future. A future as part of the MC lifestyle, the only life I had ever known.  I grew up seeing myself in it, somehow, any way at all I might fit in.  When I looked to the future, my life was filled with leather and bikes, and it was a future I looked forward to with all the passion of a little girl looking up to her father and wanting to be just like him.

It was a future I never got to have.

But Harley did.  And I had to admit that I was absolutely seething with jealously.  I wanted it then, and I wanted it now.  Nothing had changed.

Except everything.

As it turned out, Harley was even more opposed to having women anywhere near the MC than my dad was.  I got it, I understood. He was just being protective, especially of me. 

But I was determined to change his mind.  If I could just convince him to let me hang out for just a little while, he would see that there wasn’t any trouble that was going to happen, and he would let me do it more and more.

I just had to be patient.

But this was a good start.  After Harley gave me a quick refresher course, I was on my way down the street, my black hair falling out of the bottom of the helmet Harley gave me, and flapping in the wind behind me.

I had told him I was just going to go for a short ride, and it took all my willpower not to ride back over to Mason’s house. I was dying to see the look on his face when he saw me ride up.  He didn’t live too far away, but the last thing I wanted to do was piss off Harley, so I went for a short ride, and then returned home.

Harley was in the kitchen making dinner when I got back.

“So? Smooth ride?”

“Oh, my god, yes!  Harley, you are the best brother ever!”  I kissed him on the cheek again, still in disbelief that he was being so kind to me.  First, he picks me up from Mason’s, gives me a place to stay, and then gives me a bike?  His attitude sure was different than the other day, I thought to myself.

“Well, I don’t know about that…” he said, under his breath, reminding us both of his long absence in my life.  

I hated it.  The past would always be hanging over us, only allowing us brief moments of forgetting, before it barreled back into our consciousness.  

“Well, I do!  I’m going to take a shower.”  I trotted to the back of the house, determined not to let the past creep into my perfect day.

As I was showering, I remembered Harley’s meeting with the guy in the graveyard.  I knew he would be pissed if he knew I was watching and listening in, but I couldn’t resist following him earlier.  I wasn’t about to tell him, but I couldn’t help but wonder what was happening on Saturday afternoon at the Mercury Warehouse in Deep Ellum.  Club business, no doubt.

Once again, just thinking about it made me want to be a part of it so badly it hurt.  I yearned to know all the gory details, just as I had when I was a kid.  It excited me.  At one point, I had started asking my dad questions, but he put a stop to that as soon as it started.

So, I knew not to ask Harley about it, because I knew he wouldn’t talk about it.  

As my thoughts drifted back and forth between my pure elation at receiving my bike, and intense curiosity about what was going down on Saturday, a seed of a plan began forming in my head.  No matter how hard I tried to push it away, I knew it was going to take all of my willpower to avoid showing up and secretly watching them on Saturday.