Brawn

 

“Hey, Mickey, bail,” the guard called as he approached the cell door.

 

“Bail? As in, get the fuck out?” I asked.

 

“Yeah, as in some idiot just put up the money to get you out. Approach the gate,” he said.

 

I stepped up to the cell door and held my hands through the opening so he could cuff me again. For my safety, he insisted. Whatever— I knew it was just a formality. So many things in there were just a formality, a shadow of what I had seen guys go through on the inside. County was not the inside, not by a longshot.

 

“Can you tell me who bailed me out?” I asked him as we walked down the hall.

 

“Nope, just that it was done. I didn’t see who did it. They just told me to come back here and get your worthless ass.”

 

“Hey, man, I can do without the harassment, okay?” I said, laughing with the guard.

 

“Then, do yourself a favor, punk. Don’t get locked up. Gate three,” he called, and a buzzer rang out. A moment later, the gate opened up, letting us out of the cells and back into the rest of the station. There was still another gate to go through to get into the general public area, where someone was probably going to be waiting for me.

 

“Hopefully, this is the last time I see your ugly mug for a while. Tell your wife I’m sorry I had to leave so soon,” I told the guard as we approached the last gate.

 

“Gate one,” he called.

 

The gate buzzed and opened. We walked through, and it closed behind us automatically. We walked up to a little window where a lady was handling paperwork.

 

“I’ve got Johnson here,” the guard told her.

 

She looked over her paperwork and smiled. “He’s good to go.”

 

He took off the cuffs and put them back in his belt. “You heard the lady. Let’s move.”

 

Another buzzer sounded, and he pulled the door open to a lobby where people were waiting to get into visitation or waiting to pick up inmates who were being released. I thought about thanking him for his service, just to get that sarcastic laugh from him one last time, but I thought better of it. It was time to go. And I was anxious to see who was picking me up.

 

I walked into the lobby, and there she was – Amanda Langford. She looked dangerous, like a coiled serpent ready to strike. She stood up and reached out a hand.

 

“Amanda Langford. You must be Mickey,” she said.

 

I took her hand and gave it a light squeeze. “And you must be the lawyer they assigned to me. I should have known.”

 

“Well, I do have an arrangement with your MC,” she said.

 

I nodded. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t mean to take it out on you.” She wasn’t the woman I had hoped to see.

 

“It’s okay. I understand. Shall we?” She held her hand out to let me lead the way to the door.

 

“We shall, indeed,” I said as I walked to the glass door leading out to the parking lot. I held the door for her, letting her pass in front of me.

 

“I’m not used to men not checking me out. I guess that’s why you weren’t happy to see me. You had another woman on your mind,” she observed. “The reason you’re in here, I assume.”

 

“You are correct,” I said as we walked across the parking lot. I had to squint against the bright sunlight after being under the fluorescent lights of the jail.

 

“Of course I am. That’s why I get paid.” She led the way to her little red corvette. The car looked just like her.

 

I sat back in the passenger seat. “So what’s next?” I asked.

 

“Next, we get you home. Let you get cleaned up and everything, and I will handle everything on my end. It’s obviously bogus. You and Miss Kelly have a business that you launched together, and you’re living together. You didn’t kidnap her.” She turned to look at me. “Did you?”

 

I laughed.

 

“I don’t like that laugh, Brawn. I’ve been working with bikers long enough that laughing at my questions tends to make me very nervous.” She chuckled slightly.

 

“No, I didn’t kidnap her. I took her with me after we both quit working for her father. That’s it,” I said.

 

“That’s enough,” she stopped me. “I don’t need to know anything else. You’ve given me enough to work with. Make sure your story is straight with Maria’s in case we can’t get her dad to drop the charges before going to trial.”

 

“Understood.”

 

She pulled up to the house, and my car was parked out front, meaning Maria was home. Instead of in class. Instead of at work. Something had to be wrong.

 

“I’ll be in touch,” Amanda said as I got out of the car. She barely even stopped the Corvette to let me out.

 

“All right,” I said, dismissing her as I closed the door and started toward the door. She drove off behind me.

 

I opened the door and walked straight to the bedroom. Maria had a suitcase on the bed, and she was stuffing her clothes into it. She either didn’t notice me or was busy ignoring me when I entered the room. She didn’t stop what she was doing, didn’t look up or anything.

 

“What is this shit?” I asked.

 

She looked up from the clothes, a startled look in her eyes. “I’ve got to go,” she said quickly.

 

“What do you mean, you’ve got to go?”

 

She didn’t answer. She raised her eyebrows and went back to packing.

 

“No. No, no, no, stop,” I said, stepping around to the side of the bed where she was working with her clothes.

 

“Don’t,” she snapped, stepping back from me with her hands raised back. “Just don’t. You can’t stop me, Brawn. I have to do this.”

 

“Have you been crying?” I asked. Her eyes were swollen, and what little mascara she wore had run down her face.

 

“Maybe,” she said.

 

“Maybe? What kind of answer is that, Maria? Come on, talk to me,” I begged.

 

“Brawn, I can’t. Please don’t make me talk to you right now,” she pleaded with me.

 

“What do you mean, you can’t? What happened when you went to talk to your father?” I asked, raising my voice. Had she lost her mind? Nothing she said made any damn sense.

 

She stopped what she was doing and sighed. She took my face in her hands and looked me in the eye. “I have to go home, Brawn. I have to go back to live and work for my father for a little while. I’m doing this for us. I know it probably looks like I’m going crazy right now, but I know what I’m doing, okay?”

 

“I don’t think you do,” I argued. “I think you’re making a big mistake.”

 

“I think if I could tell you everything, you’d understand, but I can’t tell you what I’m really doing.” She pulled away from me and went back to packing.

 

“Why the hell not?” I asked. “Seriously, what the hell is going on?”

 

“I can’t tell you because you’ll try to stop me,” she said finally.

 

“Then, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it.”

 

“If I don’t, you’re going to jail for some shit you didn’t even do. Well, you know what I mean,” she said in exasperation.

 

“Okay, you’re doing something to help keep me out of jail. Maybe I can help. We’re a team, Maria. Let me help you so you don’t get yourself in trouble at the same time while you’re trying to help me.”

 

“No, I can’t do that, Brawn. Just let me do this myself, okay?” She closed the suitcase and picked it up from the bed.

 

I grabbed her arm as she tried to walk past me. “No,” I said simply.

 

“What do you mean no?” she snapped at me, spinning around.

 

“I mean, you’re not going anywhere until you tell me what you’re doing. Why can’t you tell me?” I asked her.

 

“If I tell you, Brawn, it will put you in unnecessary danger,” she explained to me. “In fact, you may already be danger just by being here before I had a chance to leave.”

 

“You’re not making any sense, Maria,” I told her.

 

“I’m making all the sense I can, baby, I’m sorry,” she said, pulling away from me again and walking out of the room.

 

I followed her, not reaching for her this time. I was simply following her to the door.

 

She stopped at the door and turned around to face me. She dropped her luggage and closed the distance between us with a couple of steps, allowing me to take her in my arms again. We kissed. It was a lingering kiss, our lips pressed firmly together. My arms wrapped tightly around her, holding her against me, folding her arms into my chest.

 

She pulled away and looked at me with something I hadn’t seen in her eyes yet. They were full of emotion, but it wasn’t worry or sadness I saw in them. There was a deep conviction in her face.

 

“Don’t follow me,” she said.

 

A horn blew outside.

 

“That’s the cab taking me to the office,” she added.

 

“But…” I started.

 

“This is for the best. I’ll be back when it’s all over, but I’ve got to go home and go back to work for my dad for just a few days, a couple of weeks at most. When it’s over, we won’t have to worry about him anymore, so let me do this,” she pleaded with me one last time.

 

The horn blew again.

 

“I have to go,” she said, getting the door. She grabbed her suitcase and walked outside toward the cab. The driver popped the trunk, and she tossed her bag back there before getting in.

 

I watched as the cab drove away. Her request that I not follow her played over and over in my head as I stood there holding the front door open, long after she was gone. I sighed as I closed the door and walked back into the house. I was confronted with a vacuous silence in her absence.

 

My desire to go after her had to balance out with my desire to honor her wishes and my understanding that she was able to handle herself pretty well. Regardless of what I knew to be true – that she wanted to do this on her own as much as I had wanted to run my business without interference – there was a burning in my chest that said run.

 

The guys had gone out to Kelly’s jobsite the night I was arrested and grabbed my bike. He hadn’t tampered with it at all, and it was sitting in my garage waiting on me to take her for a spin. Run, indeed. I hopped on, brought her to life, and walked her back through the open garage door.

 

I gunned the engine and pulled out of the driveway. I hit the highway and drove away from all of my troubles. Away from work, from Maria and her dad, away from Amanda Langford and my legal troubles, away from the empty house, and away from the MC. Some of the guys were still upset that I didn’t come around much. Surely somebody was unhappy that I’d been locked up over a woman I didn’t even claim as my old lady.

 

My life had become a box, and I had been trapped inside. It was time to get out, to hit the road, to ride until I had time to figure my problems out.