Word travels fast in a motorcycle club. Olivia shouldn’t have been surprised by that, considering the relatively small size of the Souls, but it was still a little odd to see how the younger members of the group immediately modified their attitudes toward Xander and, by extension, toward her. There was this new air of respect, as if Xander was several decades older than he really was. It must have been because of the new plan to partner up with the Californian Machines, Olivia figured. Xander was bringing new money into the club, and a new perspective along with it. The club was no longer going to sit around and wait for business to come to them. They were going to seek it out or, better yet, make it with their own hands.
But there was still something nagging at Olivia’s mind. More than one thing, if she were being honest with herself. The girls. That was the main problem. Xander had gotten permission to secure the funds necessary to improve the girls’ living and working conditions, but he hadn’t yet brought up the topic itself to any of the senior members. Whenever Olivia pestered him over the next week about it, Xander would say, “Soon. Soon, Olivia. I’ll handle it.” And she bristled a little bit, annoyed he was placating her rather than actively going and doing something. In the back of her mind, she worried he wasn’t going to do anything about it, but then she’d admonished herself. He hasn’t done anything to deserve your distrust. He’ll come through. He’ll do it for you.
But finally, some ten or twelve days later, Xander rolled over next to her in bed and said, “Today’s the day. I’m gonna talk to them about the girls.”
“Why today?”
“Because we got good news from the Machines. They’re down. I was waiting for confirmation that they’d be willing to trade with us first. Now I can go forward and say, yo, this is what we should do with the money,” Xander explained.
“Smart,” Olivia said, leaning in to give him a sweet soft kiss. “Smarty McSmartypants.”
“I’m gonna tell the boys first,” Xander said, his eyes hazy and unfocused, like he was imagining how those conversations would go. “I want them to feel like they’re a part of the decision, you know?”
“You’re a good leader,” Olivia said, feeling the warmth of pride grow even bigger in her chest. She couldn’t help but give herself a lot of the credit for this transformation. It was like she had molded the man of her dreams with her own two hands.
In a minute, she followed Xander downstairs to meet with the boys. She went ahead and poured herself a beer from the bar while Xander started gathering them together. Olivia was really getting into the habit of day-drinking. She never thought she would feel this comfortable drinking and smoking in the light of day, where people could see her. But she did. Bringing the bitter liquid to her lips, she felt a little fire in her belly, partly from the burn of the alcohol, partly from the victory of rebellion. It was the sweetest feeling, being bad.
“All right, okay, listen up,” Xander was yelling by the time Olivia finished her beer. Most if not all of the junior members of the club had arrived by this point, and they were all crowded around Xander, who stood in the center of the bar waving his arms.
“Tonight, we start off to California with the blow. Same deal as ever, we use the buddy system, stay together. Ezra, you’re the scout. You ride ten minutes ahead of us, stay ten miles above the speed limit, and report back on the phone if you sniff out any cops. You guys know the drill.”
“So why you fucking talkin’ our ear off?” Roger said from the other side of the bar. He didn’t raise his voice or anything. But he still held sway over the crowd, all the boys going quiet while he stared icily at Xander.
Olivia remembered that Roger hadn’t contributed to the fight in the bar from a few weeks ago and smiled to herself. It was like she was in on a special secret nobody else knew. This guy wasn’t shit. She wished the rest of the boys would notice so he would lose his power to intimidate them.
“I’m talking,” Xander started, his voice going hard and mean while he walked slowly through the sea of bodies until he was standing right next to Roger, “because there’s another fucking part to this mission, asshole. So shut the fuck up and listen.”
Roger smiled, the scars on his face stretching out as his mouth opened to bare his teeth. “Yeah, go right ahead, boss.”
Xander rolled his eyes and turned to face the rest of the crowd. “The ladies’ club. It’s got to be cleaned up. If we don’t fix shit over there, the girls are gonna get pissed off and something bad is going to happen.”
“Like what?” Danny, Roger’s little buddy, asked on the other side of the crowd.
“Like one of the girls runs and tips off the police, that’s what,” Xander said. Olivia caught on to his strategy. He had to sell the plan to the boys strategically rather than morally. They wouldn’t all commit to it unless they thought it was in their best interest. “It’ll happen sooner or later.”
“The Scorpions have been working girls for decades and it’s been okay for them,” Eric said.
“Exactly,” Xander shot back. “Because the girls over there are treated nice. They’re happy. We got to make it like that for our girls, or we’re fucked.”
“What’s this got to do with the California mission?” Roger asked.
Xander turned back to him, an annoyed expression on his face, but he said, “Good question. We’re making an investment, that’s what it’s got to do with it. Some of the funds from the mission today will go into our pockets, and some of them will go toward the girls.”
About a third of the boys in the bar immediately started protesting, while another half of the room shouted back, “Let him talk! Let him talk!”
“No, it’s okay!” Xander yelled over the cacophony. “I’m done. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” Roger yelled, his stupid fake grin falling off his face. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means this is what we’re doing,” Xander said. “Like it or not, bitch about it if you want to, but it’s what’s best for the club. So pick your balls up off the floor and deal with it if you want to make more cash and keep everybody safe. Otherwise, there’s the fucking door.”
Xander walked back through the crowd, heading toward Olivia. “How’d I do?” he asked, but the smile that spread across his face suggested he already knew the answer.
Olivia grinned back at him, throwing her arms around his neck as he approached her. “You did good, bub.”
“The boys will get used to it,” Xander said, almost like he was convincing himself. “They’ve been aimless for so long. Maybe this will give them…well, I don’t know.”
“Purpose?” Olivia suggested. Once again that beam of pride in her chest grew and grew with every passing second as she stared at Xander squirm in the seat next to her.
“Yeah, yeah, I guess,” Xander said, ducking his head.
He’s too shy to even look at me when I’m praising him, Olivia thought. But we’ll get there one day. “They want a leader,” Olivia said. “They don’t know it yet. But you can give it to them. The guidance they need.”
“I’m you now, huh?” Xander said with a smirk. “Counseling people and shit.”
Olivia laughed and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. “Yeah, I guess that’s fair.”
Xander groaned a little and nuzzled the side of Olivia’s neck. “I gotta go. I’m gonna head over to the ladies’ club, tell the girls who can speak English what we’re doing.”
“Do you want me to go with you?” Olivia asked.
“No, no, you can’t. You got to go to work later today, right? It’ll take me a few hours to get there and back,” Xander explained.
“You memorized my schedule?” Olivia asked with a smile.
Xander blushed and looked to the side. “Shut up,” he said in a low voice.
“I really like you, Xander Bellows,” Olivia whispered, leaning in to kiss his lips.
“I like you,” he murmured back as he deepened the kiss, slipping his tongue inside for a minute before pulling away from her and groaning. “I gotta go.”
“Go! Go, I’ll see you later,” Olivia said, smacking him playfully on the ass. “I’ll just sit here and drink before I gotta head into the office.”
Xander grabbed her hand, and for a second Olivia thought he was going to tug her along to the job with him, but instead he brought it to his mouth and kissed it, causing butterflies to erupt in Olivia’s stomach. Xander dropped her hand and backed away slowly, staring at her as he crossed the bar. “See you later.”
“Later,” Olivia said, smiling at him until he walked out of the door. She went around the bar and poured herself another beer.
She sat by herself for a few minutes, enjoying the homey feeling of the club. It was so nice, feeling like she belonged here. When Uncle Jerry first offered this job to her, she would have never imagined it would go this far, that it would utterly reshape her life the way it had.
Olivia heard footsteps approaching her. Somebody was probably walking around her to get to the bathroom opposite the stairs, she thought, but then the person came to stop right next to her.
She turned to see Roger sliding into the seat next to her and had to suppress the snarl that threatened to spread across her face in response. “Can I help you?” she asked, the slightest edge of sarcasm seeping into her voice despite her attempt at civility.
“Why, yes, yes, you can,” Roger said in response.
Olivia’s upper lip curled in disgust. She got hit on pretty regularly these days hanging around bikers, but most of the time it was from other clubs. Xander had gotten into the habit of letting her deal with the gross assholes herself rather than threatening or punching them to get them to shut up. He’d never let her out of his sight if he knew assholes within his own club were trying to make a move. “You know, I don’t think I can help you, buddy. Sorry. Try again later,” she said to Roger, turning back to her drink.
“Okay,” Roger said, “but I was just trying to do you a favor, you know. Let you know what’s going to happen if you don’t back the fuck off.”
Olivia put her drink down and turned back to face Roger, whose smile had slipped from his face. “Back off from what?”
“Messing with the club,” Roger said, his face screwed up in annoyance. “You’ve been sticking your fingers in it for over a month now and me and the boys are done with it.”
She rolled her eyes and took a deep drink. “Yeah, okay, sure. I’m sure the boys listen to you.”
“Not all of them, no,” Roger said. “But the ones with brains, yeah, they’re pretty pissed off. Pretty sick of seeing you around, acting like you belong. Acting like you have a right to interfere.”
Olivia clicked her teeth in annoyance. “Interesting to see you acting like you’re the boss of this MC,” she said. “How long have you been a member, Roger? A year? Two?”
“How long have you?” Roger shot back. “Oh, right, you’re not a fucking member, yet you’re making plans for the club, pushing Xander boy to take money out of our pockets.”
“What Xander does is his own business,” Olivia said. “You got a problem with it, you should talk to him.”
“We all know Xander doesn’t think for himself these days,” Roger said. “I’d say he was mesmerized by your pussy if I thought he was ever capable of stringing more than one sentence together at a time. Point is, we’re done with it. It ends today.”
“Yeah, okay, I’m done with this conversation,” she said, slamming her drink down on the surface of the bar. Olivia got up and headed for the stairs.
Roger followed her, and she was just about to scale the steps up to Xander’s apartment, where there was a lock to keep Roger out, but he pulled her by the back of her hair and slammed her against the wall. Olivia yelped, but before she could make any other noise, he slapped a hand over her mouth.
“I wouldn’t scream if I were you,” Roger whispered, clasping his hand harder over her mouth. “Xander ain’t here to help you, and none of his fucking lackeys are, either. If you scream like a bitch, the other boys might start getting ideas,” he warned.
Olivia started trembling pathetically. Stop shaking. Stop shaking. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to get out of this situation, she said to herself. But her heartbeat kept pounding hard in her ears, no matter how hard she tried to calm down. Don’t show him you’re scared. Don’t give him the satisfaction.
“Are we gonna scream or not?” Roger whispered, pressing his arm harder onto her shoulder, pinning her to the wall. When she didn’t respond, he pushed harder, and she almost bit into his palm in pain. She finally nodded her head in agreement, and he pulled his hand away from her mouth but kept his arm on her body, keeping her still.
“What do you want from me?” Olivia asked, trying to keep her voice as steady as possible.
“I told you already. You, interfering in club business? It ends today. You go away, and things go back to normal,” Roger said.
Olivia scoffed in disbelief despite her fear. “You’re jealous that Xander is stepping up and you think getting rid of me will reverse time? Is that it?”
“Worth a shot,” Roger said, tightening his grip on her shoulder, making her hiss in pain.
Come on, don’t be a scared little girl. You can handle this. You can get out of this, she coached herself. “I’m not scared of you, little boy,” Olivia spat, practically baring her teeth at Roger.
He tightened his grip some more, digging his nails into her skin. “Yeah? Well, you fucking should be. You’ve been playing dress-up the past few months, but it ends now. You stop fucking around with our lives, or I’ll have to fuck with yours. And believe me, it won’t be pretty.”
“Oooh, big talk from somebody who can’t even handle a money drop on his own. Save it,” Olivia said, and she tried to reach down to her pocket to grab her phone, but Roger’s other hand restrained hers, pushing it against the wall. She looked to the side, trying to see if anybody could see her from behind the wall, but she was tucked out of sight. Roger’s fingers dug deeper into her skin. Olivia whined a little, tiny broken noises leaving her mouth before her brain caught up and ordered it to shut up. She couldn’t show weakness, not now.
“Listen the fuck up,” Roger hissed under his breath, his eyes darting around behind the wall, probably looking to check if anyone was watching them. “I’ve got ten guys in the club sick of your fucking bullshit, sick of Xander bossing us around like he has any goddamned authority whatsoever. It’s going to stop today, or something’s gonna happen.”
“Like what?” Olivia asked, trying to sound nonchalant, like she was just in utter disbelief that he could be capable of anything real.
Roger shrugged, but then kept talking. “Lots of accidents happen out there on the road, lady. You never know. You can hit a rough patch, a pothole, or maybe just go a little too fast and hit the pavement. Or maybe you make a turn without looking both ways and—BAM!” Roger slapped the side of her body, making her jump in surprise and pain. “That’s the end of it.”
“You’re going to kill us?” Olivia asked, once again trying and failing to sound casual and unbothered. “Me and Xander, if we don’t do what you want?”
“Maybe. Or maybe just him. That’d solve my problem right up. But guess what? It’d be fine with me if you disappeared on your own terms, miss. Entirely up to you.”
“So you’re saying if I don’t leave the club, you’ll kill Xander?” Olivia asked between gritted teeth. Come on, Xander, please, come back, turn around, come back to the club, look for me, come back to see what he’s doing, please, she inwardly begged. But then another thought struck her. What if Roger wasn’t lying about the ten guys? What if Xander came back and saw this and started a fight, and then the other guys jumped in, and then—
Her inner prayer suddenly reversed itself. Stay away, Xander, please. Don’t see this. Don’t see this. She couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t start a huge fight that could get them both killed.
Instead, she went limp and loose in Roger’s grasp, collecting her thoughts together and facing him with as calm a face as she could muster. “Why shouldn’t I just tell Xander what you’ve done? He’s got lots of guys loyal to him here. He’s got Uncle Jerry. He could kill you.”
Roger shrugged. “And how do you know that anybody other than Xander and Jerry would believe you? I could just say you came on to me the second that little Xander went away. Wouldn’t shock anybody, seeing how you dress.”
Olivia made a face, utterly disgusted. “As if. You can’t be serious.”
“Who would believe you?” Roger asked.
“Ezra would,” Olivia said without thinking.
Roger laughed, using his free hand to hold his stomach, like it was the most hilarious thing he’d ever heard. “Oh, that’s funny. The weakest little bitch in the club would believe you. Big deal. You don’t know who’s on my side. You don’t know who’s ready to kill Xander in a second if he doesn’t shut up. But…” Roger leaned in, breathing on her neck, making Olivia cringe and squirm. “If you disappear, he’ll go back to being a lieutenant. He’ll be safe. Doesn’t that sound better?”
Olivia swallowed heavily, all her muscles tensing up in a last attempt to flex out of Roger’s grasp. “How do I know you’re even capable of doing anything? You don’t even fight with the boys,” she argued, reaching for any excuse she could find to make Roger crumble and admit he wasn’t for real. This couldn’t be happening. She had just made a home here. It couldn’t fall apart like this.
But Roger shrugged again, completely unbothered even as his grip tightened on her arm. “I don’t play around, don’t go around wasting my energy on shit that doesn’t matter. That’s the difference between Xander and me.” He leaned in until their faces were almost touching, breathing on her skin.
Olivia squirmed and groaned under her breath in disgust, feeling her heartbeat pick up again in terror. She had never felt this scared before in her entire life. She willed her fingers to stop shaking, but it was no use.
“Anyway, it’s fine if you don’t believe me. Just stick around and watch. See what happens to loverboy if you don’t get out of the picture.”
Roger squeezed hard onto her arm, nails piercing her skin, and Olivia had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. Her eyes flooded with hot tears, and she blinked rapidly, trying to get them to recede, but it was no good.
Roger smirked, bringing his hand up to hold her chin and make her look him directly in the eyes. “Not so tough now, are you?” he whispered before letting go of her and stomping away.
Olivia fell back against the wall, but her muscles were still tense. It was like her body was telling her to break into a run, get as far from here as possible. She buried her head in her hands and breathed deep and hard, over and over. Stop shaking. Stop fucking shaking, please, she begged herself.
Her body refused to obey.
Okay, okay, so what are my options? She could tell Xander right away and probably start a fight with Roger. If Roger were lying, Xander might still kill him just for trying to intimidate her. And if Roger were telling the truth…
So maybe she wouldn’t tell him, just in case. Could she hang around, doing the same things as usual, without telling Xander? Again, Roger might have been lying out of his ass for all Olivia knew. Other than Danny, he might not have anybody on his side. That’s still two grown men, Olivia’s inner voice argued. Even if everybody else is on Xander’s side, they could do a lot of damage.
Goddammit. What could she do to make sure nothing bad would happen, to make sure nobody got hurt? She couldn’t turn to the police in this situation. The closest thing to a cop around here was Uncle Jerry, who kept getting sicker with each passing day. And anyway, Olivia figured, only Xander had a problem with Roger. She didn’t even know if Uncle Jerry would take her word over his.
So what could she do to protect the club from Roger? To keep Xander away from doing something idiotic?
Before her brain could land on an answer, Olivia was jerked out of her head by the sound of a motorcycle rolling to a stop in front of the bar. Her muscles sprang into action: she quickly went into the bathroom to wipe at her eyes with a wet towel and adjust her dress so it didn’t look like she’d been flattened against a wall.
It was like she could sense him the minute he walked back into the building. It was Xander, she knew. She gripped the sides of the bathroom sink hard and breathed deep again, trying to anchor herself before she stepped back through the door to look out into the main room of the clubhouse.
Xander was standing there, looking a little bit annoyed but otherwise okay. Olivia stared at him standing there, smiling down at one of the young guys sitting at the bar. He looked so…free, like for a brief moment all of the weight he’d been carrying on his shoulders for the past years had melted away into nothing. But just for a moment.
What do I do?
Then Xander laughed, low and deep, his eyes twinkling for a second before he threw back his head in harder laughter. And Olivia knew the answer.
She exhaled heavily and walked forward, plastering a half-smile on her face as she approached Xander. “Hey, what’s up? Did you finish the check-up of the girls so fast?”
Xander sighed and shook his head. “Forgot my wallet. We were going to grab breakfast on the road, the boys and me.” He smiled a little at her and cupped the side of her face. “Say, you wanna eat with me before work? We could go get pancakes.”
Olivia felt this stupid feathery fluttering sensation in her chest, staring up at him to see all the shining light that his eyes held. He was so warm, so sweet, so flirty and soft, softer than she’d ever seen him before. For a moment, a brief, beautiful, fucking asshole of a moment, she thought the Roger thing might have been an awful nightmare, and Xander was the sun bringing in the redemptive truth of morning light. But it was too good to be true. Olivia saw something move over Xander’s left shoulder, and her eyes flicked involuntarily to meet Roger’s across the room. He smirked at her meanly and toasted his drink in her direction. It was real. There was no escape from this.
By this point, Xander was looking down at her in concern, stepping closer and dropping his voice as he said, “What’s up? Everything okay?”
Olivia could picture herself falling into Xander’s body, letting him catch her as she told him every single detail. Or, alternately, she could see herself grabbing his shoulders and shaking him, screaming at him to run. She could see it like it happened. But the decision had already been made, deep inside her. So instead Olivia just nodded and said, “Yeah, I’m fine. Just late for work,” before turning away from Xander and heading upstairs to grab her overnight bag from Xander’s apartment. And even though there was a voice in her brain telling her Turn back, turn back, turn back! Go the other way! as she walked back down the steps toward Xander, she just smiled up at him, her lips feeling dry and raw and tight over her skin, like the words she’d swallowed were futilely fighting their way out. “I gotta head out,” she said, her voice shaking a little on the last word.
If Xander noticed it, he let it go. “All right. I gotta go, too. The ladies aren’t going to check on themselves.”
Olivia nodded and grabbed onto Xander’s elbow. “Let’s walk out together.”
He smiled at her and leaned over to kiss the top of her head.
She clenched as hard onto his arm as she could without hurting him, suppressing the urge to smash him into her body and never let go. “I’ll miss you,” she whispered.
Xander turned to grin at her as they passed the threshold of the bar and stepped out into the mid-morning air. “It’s only a few hours. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Yeah,” Olivia said, her throat going hard as bone as she worked to keep her voice steady and calm. Tears pressed again against the back of her eyes, but this time she focused her energy on keeping them inside. Again, Xander didn’t seem to pick up on it. “I’ll see you soon.”
Xander turned toward his bike, but before he could swing onto the seat Olivia pulled him back, leaning forward to lightly kiss him. Xander returned the kiss and deepened it, cupping the back of her head gently. For a second, Olivia felt safe. But only for a second.
“I’m so proud of you,” Olivia murmured into his mouth, stroking the side of his face. “Please don’t ever forget that.”
“Okay, weirdo,” Xander said with a smile as he pulled away from the kiss. “See you tonight.”
“See you,” Olivia whispered as Xander switched on his engine and waved goodbye to her, rolling out into the horizon.
Olivia watched as Xander rode away, the black rectangle of his bike getting smaller and smaller on the horizon as each second went by. She stood there, staring out into the sun, until Xander’s little black dot faded from her sight.
Olivia walked over to her car, pressing her head hard onto the boiling surface of the shining metal. She wanted to be burned. She wanted this moment to be branded into her skin, to remind her of that special feeling she got when she kissed Xander Bellows a minute before.
But it didn’t work that way. She stepped into her car, her thighs painfully rubbing against the hot seats, and when she looked in the mirror, she couldn’t read Xander anywhere on her face or neck or arms. Her skin had forgotten him as easily as it had touched him. He was gone. Xander is gone.
Olivia cranked her engine to life, turned her car in the other direction, and set off for the highway, putting as much distance between them as possible.
It was the laughter. If Xander hadn’t laughed, who knows what she would have done? She would do anything, fight anyone, to keep Xander’s smile safe.
But sometimes fighting means being brave enough to walk away.