Beverly felt that the rest of Saturday was just as they had planned and everything she hoped for. The ride up the coast was wonderful. In Oceanside, near the pier, they found one of the little cottage places for rent. The man was happy to rent it for two days.

 

“Two? You want to spend Sunday as well?” she asked him.

 

“I thought the option would be nice to have,” Leo told her. “We don’t have to stay, but at least we can sleep in as long as we please.”

 

She nodded her head. “Nice, I like sleeping in. Well, I like the thought of sleeping in. I don’t seem to do much of it these days.”

 

“What do you seem to do these days?” he asked as they emptied their saddle bags and brought in food, bottles, cheeses, and breads.

 

She looked around. The cottage was a single room with a small bath behind a door. It was a very small bath, in fact, and there would be no showering together here. She checked the bed, seeing as most of their playtime would be spent there, and found the mattress surprisingly good.

 

“Well,” she started in answer to his question, “I work a lot. I try to make it down to the club at least three or four times a week to get out of the house and to see my friends — Yvette most of all, though I talk with her on the phone every day, sometimes more.”

 

“Yvette?” he asked, and then added, “As in Crash and Yvette?”

 

“Yeah, that’s them. I’m not that fond of Crash, but Yvette’s my best friend. What’s that look? You’re looking all browbeaten and stuff,” she observed.

 

He looked around the cottage, which had really no room to pace. “Can we take a walk?”

 

“Yeah, let’s go out on the pier,” she suggested. “I take it there’s some bad blood between you and Crash. Doesn’t surprise me. There seems to be bad blood between the club and Crash sometimes.”

 

As they walked further out over the ocean, Leo told her the story that had begun four years ago. “So, yeah, I left him. It was that or murder a cop, because she had him. He was pinned under his bike by his leg with a shot gun in his face, and his bike was pinned under her car.”

 

“So, he got arrested and wound up doing two years and you got off with the cash,” she summed up.

 

“He didn’t have to do the two years, and all of the cash I put on his prison books, along with five grand of my own money that I was going to use for his bail. But he fucked that up, too,” Leo told her.

 

“How?”

 

“Jay and I, we go down to the bail hearing. We’re expecting at the max they are going to give him $100k bail, so the bond is ten grand. We got the bondsman with us, another member, Frankie. So all three of us are there and they bring Crash in, who’s talking under his breath.

 

“Jay goes up to represent him, and he gives out the spiel that Crash has close ties to the community, he’s part owner of a shop. He’s only been arrested once, six years ago for drug possession. But Jay is so good at this he makes even that sound like it’s nothing and happened in the Dark Ages.

 

“Then DA, she gets up and hands Jay a transcription of Crash’s interview with the detectives, and then passes a copy to the judge,

 

"Fuck the bros, and the hoes, I’m done. I’m going to Mexico and never coming back,” end quote. So, your honor, since he swears he isn’t going to make his court date, and that he has a share coming from the robbery, practically admitting not only guilt but guilt without remorse, I ask the court to make the bail five million dollars, or not offer it at all.’”

 

“Seriously?” Bev said, looking at him. “Crash told that to two detectives, while being interviewed about the robbery. That is so fucking insane!”

 

“Oh, it gets worse,” Leo told her. “Even with that, Jay is sure he can get him off completely, if Crash will just shut the fuck up. ‘Don’t say anything to anyone else!’ But then Jay gets the rest of the transcript from the detectives. And it’s impossible. Crash admits, several times, to them that the plan was his and that his partner would never have even got a dime out of this sweet deal if Crash didn’t trust him, and the cocksucker left him behind.”

 

Leo looked out at the ocean.

 

“He rolled you?” she said with a gasp.

 

“No, not once. He did described me, dark hair and green eyes, spider tattoo on the neck. He tells them what kind of bike I ride. He tells them his club isn’t going to stand for this shit. He all but tells them where the clubhouse is, but he never mentions names, or the club name, or actually tells them where the club is. It’s fucking obvious, of course, because there is no other bar near that area, and the detectives come out several times, looking for me, or someone who is tall with dark hair and green eyes who rides a blue Lowrider. But they don’t actually know my name.”

 

“What did Danny do?”

 

“Oh, Danny was furious. He tells me to call for tribunal, and he’ll take care of the rest, but even though I know there was nothing I could do for him, I still have this guilt, ya know? So, I don’t call, and I never saw Danny more angry at me before. I explained to him, if they take his patch now, there’s no telling what he’ll say in there. The patch is the only thing restraining him from names, dates, and marks. ‘And just how many jobs is he aware of?’ I ask Danny. It takes him a bit, but he calms down and nods his head, and says fine.”

 

“But as soon as he is out, you start making yourself scarce,” she notes. “From what I gathered last night, you’ve been gone for the past four years.”

 

“Well, yeah,” he nods, “but not because of Crash. I’ve just discovered that I love to ride long roads.”

 

“Nothing to do with him at all,” she pressed.

 

“Nope, not at thing.”

 

“So, you’re not feeling mad or guilty about any of this anymore?” she asked.

 

“Nope, feeling just merry with it.”

 

“So when he starts his bullshit some time when we go back to the club—”

 

“I’ll kick the shit out of him,” he said, looking into her eyes.

 

“What about tribunal?”

 

He looked away and out to sea with a look in his eye like he might have been wondering if sailing was anything like riding a bike. “No, no tribunal. Not from me. He’s a sick man. Something broke in him. He wasn’t always like this — well, not this bad. Not this arrogant, and certainly not this stupid. Something broke when I rode away.”

 

“Something that you didn’t break,” she told him, putting her hand on his chest.

 

He gave her a smile and a nod but didn’t say anything. She wrapped her arms around him, wishing that there was some way to heal this wound, some way known to her.

 

Over ten minutes passed before he said, “You know, in chess, it is possible to make every move perfectly and still lose the game. Doesn’t matter to me that I didn’t do anything wrong. I want to know what I could have done right, or what there is to do now.”

 

“At this moment, the right thing to do is take me back to the cottage for rumpus sex. After that, we can check out that sushi place I can see from here, and then we’ll have some more sex. How’s that sound?” she asked, rubbing her hand across his chest, loving the feel of him.

 

“Sounds like words of wisdom to me,” he said with a smile. “I really hope you and Yvette can see your way past Crash and I.”

 

“I’m sure we will,” she said with a grin.