The parts are delivered to a nondescript warehouse, and then we are back on the road, zooming back to town. The exchange was particularly boring: no gun fights, no car chases, no double-crossing biker members, no fistfights, just a regular day-to-day job, like Maddox said.
I keep asking myself what I am doing, why my arms are wrapped around an outlaw’s midriff, why my hands feel so comfortable laid flat on his steel-hard belly, a belly so hard and muscular I’m sure I feel it through the thick leather of his jacket. Why did I wait outside the coffee shop for him? That’s not something I would ever do. I’m already starting to wonder if I had any say in it? Why, why, why . . .
It’s the way he looks at you, and you know it, my inner voice whispers, my annoying-ass, sarcastic, know-it-all voice. He looks at you like a hungry wolf, like a beast on the hunt, like a beast about to jump from the shadows and tackle its prey. And despite what you tell yourself, despite all the lectures and seminars and gender theory talk, you love being looked at like that. Objectified is the word, and you love it!
I squeeze Maddox harder, the helmet suddenly feeling too close around my head, trapping the heat. It’s true. Dammit, it’s true.
Maddox rides us back toward LA central but turns onto a side road just before entering the city. He rides for a few minutes, and then turns again into the car park of what I first take for a random bar. It has the same squat, wide build, the same neon letters installed into the triangle of the roof, and the same big wide wooden doors. When I read the dark red letters, I know it’s the clubhouse: The Miseryed. The car park is about one-third full before we get there, bikes after bikes, with only a few cars. The bikes are all clean, shining in the sun.
All the bikes pull in and stop. Kickstands are freed, and the bikes are turned off. One second the air is full of thrums and growls, the next it is almost silent. Maddox climbs off the bike, and I do the same. I take off my helmet, shake my hair free, and hand it to him. My hair falls flat over my eyes, obscuring my vision. When I smooth it clear, I see that Maddox is watching me.
“What?” I demand.
“Just now, when you shook your hair,” he says, “you were like a model in a TV advert.”
Maddox’s men file past him, all of them muttering, “Boss.” Markus, the big beast, stops beside him and waits for the rest of the men to file into the clubhouse. I feel out of place as his second-in-command (which he quite clearly is) and Maddox stand casually in the car park.
Markus doesn’t look at me. His face is squashed, all his features too large so that they appear to fall in upon each other. “Anything else, Boss?” he asks.
“Not today,” Maddox says. “Go and relax.”
“Thanks, Boss.”
Markus walks a few steps toward the clubhouse, stops, and then turns around. He approaches me in two large strides and darts his hand out. I’m so shocked that I take a step back, and then Markus laughs uncomfortably. His hand is shaking. I look down at it for a few seconds before I realize: he wants to shake hands. I meet his hand in the middle and shake with him.
“Markus Green,” he grunts.
“Eden Chase,” I reply.
He releases my hand, and then paces toward the clubhouse.
I turn to Maddox, who watched the little exchange with a small smile. I raise my eyebrow: what the hell? He lets out a short laugh. “Markus is a tough man, a trustworthy man, but he’s incredibly anxious around women. I think he was trying to be polite, in his own way.”
I smile. “It was kind of cute,” I comment.
“Yes, kind of.” Then he walks right up to me. Toying with me again. His favorite trick: the bait and switch. “So, are you ready to come and see what an outlaw’s home base is like?”
“A den of thieves, you mean?” I say. It’s meant to be quick, caustic, but he’s so close to me, my heart is beating so fast, that it comes out breathy and mouse-like.
“A den of thieves!” he grins. “Exactly.”
This is the first man I’ve ever met who I wanted to slap and kiss at the same time. But if he really does know a programmer, it’ll be worth it, won’t it?