LOKI

I roll over, fuck.

My eyes bolt open and I look around. “Huh?” I mumble.

Must have been a dream.

I roll over again, this time with my face landing in the blankets. All I can smell is her. Kiwi.

I bolt upright. It’s still dark outside and I’m lying across my bed buck ass naked. “How?” I ask no one and I look around the room. I see my pants, but by t-shirt and cut are missing.

My eyes roam around the room and they land on the picture next to my clock. I shudder when the night comes roaring back to me.

The chick, at the bar. Skit, that’s what Loni called her earlier in the day. She served us, we drank.

Pyro left…

“Fuck,” I groan as I stand, heading for the front door. My shades are pulled back on the picture window near the door and I can see my driveway- no bike. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I turn and see my cut hanging on the hook by the door. My eyes roam down to the floor and I find my t-shirt and nothing else.

I shake my head and stumble back to my room.

“What the…?” I breathe as I pick up the skimpy black lace thing lying on my floor.

Then I remember snapping her thong right before I tried to plunge inside her. The only other woman I’ve ever gone bareback with was her, Kiwi. Why did I all of a sudden want to do it again? I ask myself, but I have no logical answer.

She stopped me. Rolled on a condom.

Jesus, for a bar slut, your cunt’s tight as a glove.

I pull the fabric to my nose and inhale her scent. Strawberries and sex. My mind wanders back to that night in Boulder when I plunged face first into her beautiful cunt.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” I groan before plopping back on the bed. My head roars with the start of a hangover as my eyes land on her picture next to my bed. Asleep, sprawled out on the bed, tank screwed up, hair slung over the pillow. The picture of perfection.

You walked away from it, asshole.

That's the last thought that rolls through my mind before I pass out, again.

LILY

“Lily,” I hear before a knock against my bedroom door.

I scrub my face, praying my eyes are no longer red and swollen from the crying jag I let myself have before passing out around three this morning.

“What is it, Emily?” I ask.

“Piper, she’s not feeling well,” Emily tells me through the door.

“I’ll be right out.”

I hear Emily’s retreating footsteps as I climb out of bed, my eyes roaming around the room looking for something to put on. I grab Loki’s old t-shirt then check myself in the mirror. I’d washed off my make-up before I started in on myself last night. So, I’m really just checking to make sure the emotional breakdown isn’t evident.

I can’t believe I thought for one second my plan would work. I should have known he’d pass out, or wouldn’t give a shit. Especially after he called me a bar slut with a tight pussy. It was at that point I felt completely used and I hated that my body responded to him the way it did.

I’ve always had a hot spot for Loki, ever since I was a little girl. First, it was just that he was sweet, nice to me, babysat me when my parents were busy or when Tryke was unable to. Then, as we both got older, he got hotter and hotter and I got more and more infatuated with him.

I shake off the memories and cover myself with the t-shirt and throw on a pair of pajama shorts before leaving my bedroom. I stop at Piper’s room and she’s not there so I make my way into the living room. It’s bright, too bright in the house. It must be early afternoon when I find Piper laying on the couch.

“What’s the matter, Pipes?” I ask her as I sit next to her.

“I not feel good, mommy.” Her voice is soft, sad and pathetic. I put my hand on her forehead.

“You’re not running a fever,” I tell her.

“I know, I just…I miss Uncle Sticks,” she says sadly.

“I know, baby, I do too, but I promise, things will be alright here.” I take a deep breath. I was waiting for this to happen. She and Sticks were like two peas in a pod. Sticks despised my leaving Boulder, but he understood that the time had come for me to do what I needed to do. He relented when he realized that even six years later, despite my daughter, I wasn’t going to let them get away with the things they did to my family. “Can we just give it a little time?” I ask her softly and she nods. “Good, thank you, baby girl. Now, what can I get you to make you feel better?”

“Ice cream,” she states, her voice more confident now.

I raise an eyebrow at her. “Have you had lunch yet?”

She nods enthusiastically before coming off the sofa and wrapping her arms around my neck, squeezing tightly. “You have to work?”

“Not for a while, baby. Tell you what, let’s have Emily get you some ice cream while I go get in the shower, then you and I can watch that movie you like?”

“The one with the yellow guys?” she asks sheepishly.

I laugh lightly. “That’s the one,” I tell her and she lights up before hopping down and going into the kitchen.

“Emi, Emi…” she practically shouts as she runs into the kitchen.

“What, baby?” Emily says back to her.

“Mommy, say I can have ice cream.”

“She did, huh?”

“Uh huh,” Piper answers back.

I smile as I stand up from the couch. A distant sound catches my attention and I listen intently as the roar of Harleys draws closer to the house. Three of them roar past the house, all wearing Wicked Angels cuts. They go too fast for me to be certain, but I don’t think any of them are Loki.

The bikes continue down the street until the noise disappears. Then it comes back. This time it’s just one bike. It slows in front of the house. I can’t tell who it is at first, not until they pause right in front of my house. Eyes locked on my bike as it’s parked out front. He seems to be looking it over, almost as if he’s trying to decide who it belongs to. After a moment, he turns his head and I see the jagged scar down the side of his face and I know it’s the man who was with Loki last night.

I can’t place him, but there is something oddly familiar about him and its really starting to bother me.

After a few moments, the bike roars and takes off after the other three. Loki’s house is right down the street, though out of earshot of the bikes, close enough that he could drive by and see my car in the driveway. That is if he was that alert last night.

“Here you go, sweetie,” I hear Emily say.

“Thank you,” Piper replies and I scoot down the hall for my room, a shower and clean change of clothes.

It’s now quarter after five and I have to be to work in forty-five minutes. I kneel and Piper wraps her arms around me. “See you tomorrow, mommy,” she says.

My working nights, in a bar, is nothing new for her, which is why Emily is here. We became friends after she stopped at the bar where I was working at the time. I don’t know what it was, but we just clicked. She was doing everything she could just to pass through town and move on with her life.

We never discussed her reasons for running away, but I managed to convince her to stay. She was barely nineteen at the time and I wasn’t about to let her take off. So, I gave her a job as my nanny. When it came time for me to move down here, I offered her more money, and she didn’t hesitate, much. She has her own room, and she takes care of Piper for me. I look past Piper to Emily. “I left your salary and some grocery money on the counter for you,” I tell her.

“Thank you, Lily,” she smiles.

Emily is twenty-two now and I hated pulling her away from Boulder, but she was more than willing to come with me. She’s a sweet girl and amazing with Pipes. She is making plans to go back to school and I offered to help her pay for it. I’m not broke and working at a bar is hardly what I need to do to make a living and it kills me to pull so much time away from Piper, but I have to do this. If I don’t, and I’m discovered, she’ll never be safe.

“Love you, baby girl. Have a good day at school tomorrow.” I squeeze her.

“I will,” she says enthusiastically. It was evident that school was going to be a great place for Piper and it has been. She’s in kindergarten, but her school doesn’t offer full day, so she’s there in the mornings. “Love you,” she smiles as she lets me go. She turns toward Emily. “I want mac n’ cheese for dinner.” I smile at Emily who nods and takes Piper into the kitchen for dinner.

I secure my leather and head out the front door, a bag in hand. I can’t very well wear leather bike boots, though I’m sure Loni is gonna give me an eyeful when I show up on my bike at the bar tonight. I don’t give a shit. I don’t want to take my car. The temptation to give Loki a ride home again, should he show up, is too great. I have to put some distance between us or I won’t get this shit over with so I can go back to Boulder with my heart in one piece.

Big Daddy is keeping Sticks in the loop on what’s going down in Roswell. Sticks is keeping me in the loop on the side. I need to know when Arizona plans to make their move so I can have my crack at Gunnar and Rooster before Big Daddy gets his claws into them.

I fling my leg over my bike and start it. Feeling the rumble and hum of the engine between my legs gives me a feeling of power and invincibility. I look to the sky and silently thank my brother for teaching me to ride before he taught me to drive.

Old ladies don’t drive, they ride bitch.

I guess maybe I was never meant to be an old lady. I love the rumble of the bike between my legs and the control in my hands as I drive.

I put my shades on and slowly back the bike down the driveway before kicking over the gears and taking off down the street.

The wind in my face is the best feeling in the world, second only to looking in my daughter’s eyes.

The eyes of her father.