Zane
My plans always tended to have an edge to them that some would call crazy. When I was in my last year of high school, I was part of the crowd that hung out in the smoke pit and skipped class most of the time. When I did bother to show up, I did quite well. I probably wouldn’t have bothered to show up at all if it hadn’t been for my dad pressuring me. Pressuring me to drop out, that is. The old man got it in his head that I had a brighter future waiting for me outside the confines of institutionalized education. He encouraged me to leave the other squares behind and join him at the club full-time so he could teach me the ropes.
It had sounded like a good idea at first, but then I’d taken a good hard look at where my dad was in life and decided that I didn't want that for myself. Maybe I wasn’t going to be one of the preppy debate school boys, but I wasn’t going to become a dropout like my dad and launch myself into a life where my only options were flipping burgers or being paid to do what my dad told me to do.
So I went to high school. I scraped by enough to pass, and when the end of the year rolled around I was ready to leave the decrepit old building, and my father, in my rearview forever. Fate had other plans. Hell, I crafted those plans. When I found out the preppy debate type boys were hosting an end of year party, all my loser friends and I crashed it. It was a roaring success. What started out as an innocent Hawaii themed luau turned into an all-night rock fest. Even the guys who we stole the party from got into it at the end. They saw how much the girls liked it.
But I’d paid for that when the cops came. I shouldn’t have mouthed them off like I did, but I was drunk and young and thought I was invincible. So they slammed me into some cuffs and locked me up for the night.
When my dad came and got me in the morning, he also picked up the bill for the massive fine I had incurred for damaging police property, among other things. It wasn’t my fault their cars were so fragile. I spent the rest of the summer paying off my dad by working in his shop, and by the time the summer was over I had already taken on too much responsibility to leave.
Or at least that was what I told myself. In truth, I got to feeling responsible for my old man. I saw how he struggled with the business and the club and wanted to help him out, even if he had been a shit dad to me. So that was where I stayed.
Taking Asa to “therapy” wasn’t quite comparable to crashing a high school party with speakers and beer, but it felt the same going into it. Either things were going to go really well, or they were going to go really bad. Only time would tell.
It was the morning after I’d told my plan to Sasha. I was surprised at how readily she’d agreed, all things considered. It only made me think higher of her. She barely knew me and yet she wanted to help me; that wasn’t something I took lightly. In my world, you got as much respect as you gave. And Sasha had given quite a lot.
She’d given a lot of other things too, and my cock would stiffen anytime I thought about it. It was stiffening right now as I made a cup of coffee and I frowned. I shouldn’t have wanted her this much still. I never wanted a woman again after having her once. But something about Sasha… It was different and strange, but good. Maybe it was the fact that she was so different to every woman I’d ever taken out before. She was a scholar, shy and sweet. She didn’t wear too much perfume or reek of bad decisions.
I was beginning to think I’d been making poor choices in women.
Like Asa. Holy fuck had that been a poor choice.
My coffee was bitter. Normally I liked it that way, but I must’ve put a few too many grinds in the pot. Ah well, I kept drinking it nonetheless. Rolling my shoulders, I headed into the living room and sat on my couch, sinking into the plush cushions. My laptop was sitting, closed, on the table in front of me, and I booted it up as I took my next bitter sip.
My email, as usual, was filled with unread messages. I usually spent the morning going through and answering emails, then in the afternoon I’d go do my shift at the shop. The club’s headquarters was a tattoo shop down in the warehouse district called Industrial Tattoo. It used to be a shoe factory, but it had gone under in the thirties and been purchased by my grandad as an investment property. None of my guys knew that I came from money originally. On my mom’s side, anyway. Grandad rented out the building to a few tenants over the years, but it was hardly the gem of his empire. He left it to my mom when he died, and she, in turn, left it to my dad. He moved his operation out there when I was a kid, and there’s been no going back since.
It was the best place to get shit done, and an ideal location for any illegal activities too. That had been my dad’s perspective, anyway. I liked to keep to legal income. The shop brought in some money, but most of the club’s income was in transport, bodyguarding, security - that kind of thing. My dad had tried gun trafficking out for a time, which was why he was in the slammer and I was in my own personal prison. Now some of the guys wanted to cut a strip of the drug scene for the Iron Reapers, but that would only lead to trouble. Even if it was where the money was. It was causing friction, to say the least.
That pissed me off probably more than all the work did. Yeah, it was shitty being chained to a desk when all I wanted to do was ride, but I hated how much resentment I faced on a daily basis from guys in the club who wanted more money. The greedy fuckers. We made more than enough money and having them pissy at me about it when I didn’t even want to head the club in the first place was a pain in my ass.
Just like Asa.
I sighed and clicked through the rest of my morning emails, trying not to think too much about anything. Sasha kept slipping into my head, though, oddly enough. It was a welcome distraction. I thought about those long, graceful legs, and that perfect smile and the irritation began to wash off of me.
I finished early and wasn’t due at the shop for another hour or so. It was a good a time as any to practice my pool. I smiled triumphantly, closing the laptop and practically bounding to the front door. The only things that seemed to get me excited these days were pool and billiards. Or rather, I supposed, the money I got from them. Yeah, I came from money, but “daddy dearest” spent every last dime of what was supposed to be my inheritance from my mom. Who even knows what the fuck on? That man had been a complete fool with money. It was a wonder that the endless string of hookers and bad decisions hadn’t put the shop into debt. Thank fuck for that.
The ride to the pool hall was warm and serene. I always felt better on my bike. I felt even better when I had a beautiful girl behind me. That must’ve been the eighth time I’d thought about Sasha already, and it was still the morning.
Armand’s Billiards was pretty empty, though that was normal for this time of day. It was an all-night billiards hall, and I’d seen it at every hour. Late morning was when the few tourists who somehow managed to get lost in this part of town would stop in for a drink and ogle the locals. Not that there were many locals. The couple of drunks who sat at the bar until the real bars opened downtown mostly kept to themselves, and the other patrons were normally drifters I didn’t recognize.
I grabbed my favorite table and began to practice, sinking ball after ball with perfect precision. The regional billiards championships were coming up damn fast, and I was a favorite to win them this year. The money from that might not be much to shake a stick at, twenty grand, but it would be another feather in my cap. And, as always, there would be plenty of hustle going on, and a filthy spot of gambling too. Who knew where I’d end up in all of it?
Even as I chased ball after ball into the pockets, I still wasn’t alone in my happy place. Sasha’s beautiful green eyes were watching every shot. It was like she was in my head, and I actually performed better because of it. I wondered if the magic would have the same effect if she were to actually watch a game of mine.
As I whiled away my hour of peace, it struck me just how messed up it was that I only got to experience this kind of peace for a few hours a week. The rest of the time was dedicated to dealing with the drama of the club, running the business, and now I had my psycho ex to factor in. Did she actually expect me to believe that baby was mine? She was a lunatic, through and through.
My only hope was for my plan with Sasha to work. I believed it would. Something had to.